Alexandre Tharaud is a French pianist whose repertoire spans composers from
Bach to
Chopin to
Thierry Pécou, a contemporary of
Tharaud's. In 2012, he was featured on the soundtrack for the Academy Award-winning film
Amour, performing the works of
Bach,
Beethoven, and
Schubert. He also appeared on camera in the film, as himself.
Tharaud was born in Paris to performance artists on December 12, 1968. His grandfather was a violinist, his mother taught dance at the Paris Opera, and his father participated in community operettas as a singer, then as a director. His parents started
Tharaud on the piano at age five, and he enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris at age 14. By the late 1980s, he had finished among the top three in several international piano competitions, including a second-place finish at the Munich International Competition in 1989.
In 1993, playing a 1926 Steinway D Concert Grand,
Tharaud recorded Grieg: Lyric Pieces (Lyrische Stucke), released by Dante Productions. Two years later, he was joined by
Darius' widow,
Madeleine Mihaud, who acted as narrator on
Milhaud: Piano Music. His other recordings in the 1990s included works by
Poulenc,
Debussy,
Saint-Saëns, and, for the Arion label, the complete piano works of
Emmanuel Chabrier. His more than a dozen albums in the 2000s included well-loved French composers like
Ravel and
Satie, as well as
Schubert,
Chopin, and 20th century composers such as
Mauricio Kagel and
Thierry Pécou.
Tharaud premiered
Pécou's first concerto in Paris in 2006, and collaborated with the
Ensemble Orchestral de Paris for Thierry Pécou: L'Oiseau Innumérable, released by Harmonia Mundi in 2008. In the meantime, the pianist built an international reputation for mixing Baroque, Romantic, and contemporary works in his concerts, and for unusual programming, such as selecting pieces that include a singer or narrator.
Director Michael Haneke featured
Tharaud both onscreen and on the soundtrack of his Oscar-, BAFTA-, and Golden Globe-winning film
Amour, released in 2012. The soundtrack followed on Virgin Classics in early 2013.
Tharaud's subsequent piano recordings included albums such as 2015's
Bach: Goldberg Variations and 2016's
Tharaud Plays Rachmaninov. Also in 2016,
Tharaud was named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.
In 2017, Erato released his
tribute to French singer
Barbara, which included duets with Juliette Binoche,
Jane Birkin, and
Vanessa Paradis, among other guest vocalists. While
Tharaud was by then a well-established figure on the French charts, it marked his debut on the Swiss albums chart.
Tharaud issued two albums in early 2020: Complices with
Jean-Guihen Queyras, on Harmonia Mundi, and an Erato release of music by
Gérard Pesson, Hans Abrahamsen, and Oscar Strasnoy.