Philippe Cassard & Cédric Pescia
Biography Philippe Cassard & Cédric Pescia
Philippe Cassard
has established an international reputation as concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician since giving a joint recital with Christa Ludwig in Paris in 1985. The same year he was finalist at the Clara Haskil Competition and in 1988 he won the First Prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition.
His concerto appearances include performances with the London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and BBC Wales, Orchestre National de France, Hungarian State Opera Orchestra… He has worked with many conductors including Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Jeffrey Tate, Sir Roger Norrington, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Charles Dutoit, Armin Jordan, Marek Janowski, Vladimir Fedosseiv…
His performance of the complete piano works of Debussy (four recitals in a single day) received extremely enthusiastic press and media coverage. He has presented the cycle in London Wigmore Hall, Dublin, Paris, Lisbon, Sydney, Vancouver, Singapore and Tokyo. He also visits China, Australia, South America and Canada regulary.
Philippe plays a huge repertoire of chamber music, he appearead with such artists as Wolfgang Holzmair, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Karine Deshayes, Donna Brown, Paul Meyer, Jörg Widmann, Matt Haimovitz, Isabelle Faust, the Ebene, Takacs, Vanbrugh, Danish, Chilingirian string quartets.
In 2012, Philippe becomes soprano Natalie Dessay’s exclusive pianist. They have performed in France, England (Barbican and Wigmore Hall in London), Ireland, Japan, Russia, Austria (Musikverein Vienna), Canada and USA (Carnegie Hall in New York)… The duet has recorded Debussy Songs, a French Mélodies album (Erato), and a Schubert’s Lieder programme (Sony Classical).
Philippe Cassard has been artistic director of the festival «Nuits Romantiques du Lac du Bourget »(1999-2008), and since 2005, he has presented over 600 live weekly programmes on France Musique Radio dedicated to piano interpretation (awarded Prix SCAM in 2007 as “Best radio programme”). His last CD’s releases include Fauré’s Ballade and Fantaisie with orchestra, and a Mendelssohn solo recital (Sony Classical).
Cédric Pescia
pianist of dual French and Swiss nationality, was born in Lausanne. He studied with Christian Favre at the Conservatoire de Musique in Lausanne, later with Dominique Merlet at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva where he earned a Premier Prix de Virtuosité with honors and completed his studies with Klaus Hellwig at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.
In addition he has studied with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Daniel Barenboim, Henri Barda, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ivan Klansky, Christian Zacharias, Ilan Gronich and with the Alban Berg Quartet. From 2003 until 2006 he was invited to attend the famous International Piano Academy, Lake Como (Italy) where he worked with Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, William Grant Naboré, Menahem Pressler, Andreas Staier and Fou Ts´ong.
Cédric Pescia was the brilliant First Prize Winner (Gold Medalist) at the 2002 Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City (USA).
Concert tours have taken him throughout Europe, China, South America, North Africa and in the USA. He has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Hamburg Laieszhalle, the Mozarteum Salzburg, Carnegie Hall New York, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, Wigmore Hall London, Tonhalle Zürich, Vienna Konzerthaus and has appeared in leading music festivals such as : Prague Spring Festival, Lucerne Festival, Menuhin Festival-Gstaad, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Davos Festival, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, Les Muséiques Basel and Schubertiade Hohenems.
His orchestral appearances have been with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the Utah Symphony, the Festival Strings of Luzern, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Ensemble Oriol Berlin, the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, the Camerata Bern, the Basler Kammerorchester, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Göttinger Symphonie Orchester and the Orchestre National de Lille.
In addition to his activities as a soloist, his love for chamber music regularly leads to performances with other eminent musicians. For many years Cédric Pescia has been working in close collaboration with violinist Nurit Stark.
He is founding member and artistic director of the Lausanne chamber music series Ensemble enScène. In 2005 and 2007 he served as a jury member in the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey.
He is giving master classes in the USA and in Europe, a.o. at the prestigious Accademia Pianistica Internazionale « Incontri col Maestro » in Imola, Italy. In 2012 he was appointed professor for piano at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève. In 2007, Cédric Pescia was honoured with the Prix Musique de la Fondation Vaudoise pour la culture. He was also a prizewinner at the Bourse de la Fondation Leenaards in Lausanne. The duo Nurit Stark (violin) and Cédric Pescia is supported by the Forberg-Schneider Foundation.
