Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has achieved acclaim for a variety of disparate repertories, but particularly for his complete cycles of music by
Haydn,
Debussy,
Ravel,
Bartók, and
Prokofiev. He has performed and recorded with a wide array of ensembles and conductors throughout the world and has achieved success critically.
Bavouzet was born in Lannion, France, on October 17, 1962. He studied music at the Paris Conservatory with Pierre Sancan. In 1986,
Bavouzet won the Beethoven International Competition in Cologne. Three years later, he was given the Steven de Groote Memorial Award for best chamber music performance at the Van Cliburn Competition. While
Bavouzet enjoyed reasonable success in the wake of these triumphs, including his appearance on a 1993 Accord release of works by Stockhausen, his breakthrough came in 1995 when he debuted with the
Orchestre de Paris at the invitation of
Georg Solti. In a 1998 concert with the
Orchestre de Paris,
Bavouzet collaborated with
Pierre Boulez, a conductor with whom he would make many subsequent appearances, both in France and abroad.
Bavouzet has concertized throughout Europe, the U.K., the U.S., and Asia and has appeared with many leading conductors, including
Gergiev,
Ashkenazy,
Boulez, and
Gianandrea Noseda.
Bavouzet has found continued success as his career has progressed, not least because of his considerable activity in the recording studio. He recorded the
complete piano works of Ravel to acclaim for MDG in 2003. For his initial project with Chandos, he issued the
complete piano works of Debussy in 2006, with critics broadly approving of each release. In 2008, he began recording the complete piano sonatas by Beethoven, the
first of which was released in 2012.
Bavouzet distinguished himself further when in 2009, he played the challenging five
Prokofiev concertos over two concerts with the
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor
Antoni Wit. That year,
Bavouzet premiered a work dedicated to him, the
Bruno Mantovani piano concerto The Book of Jeb, at the Piano aux Jacobins International Festival in Toulouse.
Bavouzet's repertory extends to individual works by
Liszt,
Tchaikovsky, and Pierné. The following year, he issued the
first volume in a complete cycle of
Haydn's sonatas. Alongside the
Haydn cycle,
Bavouzet began a survey of
Mozart concertos in 2016, issuing the fifth volume in 2020. In 2022, he released the
tenth volume of his
Haydn cycle.
Bavouzet's recordings have won awards from the Grammophon and BBC Music magazines, as well as the Diapason d'Or and the Choc de l’année. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke