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Lucas Debargue
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Biography

“The incredible gift, artistic vision and creative freedom” of Lucas Debargue was revealed by his performances at the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow in 2015 and distinguished with the coveted Prize of the Moscow Music Critics’ Association.

Today, Lucas is invited to play solo and with leading orchestras in the most prestigious venues of the world including Berlin Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Vienna, Théâtre des Champs Elysées and Philharmonie Paris, London’s Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Cologne Philharmonie, Suntory Hall Tokyo, the concert halls of Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul, and of course the legendary Grand Hall of Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg and Carnegie Hall in New York. He also appeared several times at the summer festivals of La Roque d’Anthéron and Verbier.

Lucas Debargue regularly collaborates with Valery Gergiev, Mikhail Pletnev, Vladimir Jurowski, Andrey Boreyko, Tugan Sokhiev, Vladimir Spivakov and Bertrand de Billy. His chamber music partners include Gidon Kremer, Janine Jansen, and Martin Fröst.

Born in 1990, Lucas forged a highly unconventional path to success. Having discovered classical music at the age of 10, the future musician began to feed his passion and curiosity with diverse artistic and intellectual experiences, which included advanced studies of literature and philosophy. The encounter with the celebrated piano teacher Rena Shereshevskaya proved a turning point: her vision and guidance inspired Lucas to make a life-long professional commitment to music.

A performer of fierce integrity and dazzling communicative power, Lucas Debargue draws inspiration for his playing from literature, painting, cinema, jazz, and develops very personal interpretation of a carefully selected repertoire. Though the core piano repertoire is central to his career, he is keen to present works by lesser-known composers like Karol Szymanowski, Nikolai Medtner, or Milosz Magin.

Lucas devotes a large portion of his time to composition and has already created over twenty works for piano solo and chamber ensembles. These include Orpheo di camera concertino for piano, drums and string orchestra, premiered by Kremerata Baltica, and a Piano Trio was created under the auspices of the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. As a permanent guest Artist of Kremerata Baltica, Lucas has been commissioned to write a chamber opera.

Sony Classical has released five of his albums with music of Scarlatti, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Medtner and Szymanowski. His monumental four-volume tribute to Scarlatti, which came out at the end of 2019, has been praised by The New York Times and selected by NPR among “the ten classical albums to usher in the next decade.” In August 2021, Sony will release a new CD entirely dedicated to the Polish composer Miłosz Magin. A true discovery of a fascinating yet unknown composer recorded with Kremerata Baltica and Gidon Kremer.

Lucas’s breakthrough at the Tchaikovsky Competition is the subject of the documentary To music. Directed by Martin Mirabel and produced by Bel Air Media, it was shown at the International Film Festival in Biarritz in 2018.

 

Current album

Fauré: Complete Music for Solo Piano

Artists Lucas Debargue

Release Date: 03/22/2024

For his latest release on Sony Classical, pianist Lucas Debargue turns to one of the unsung treasuries of the piano repertoire — the works of Gabriel Fauré.

In a remarkable undertaking, Debargue has recorded every note of his compatriot’s piano music — all on a newly designed piano rarely heard on record until now. Throughout each recording, he retraced Fauré's musical path, from his earliest works to his final compositions. "Recording it," says the pianist, has "transformed my life both as a person and as a musician."

Lucas Debargue’s recording of Fauré’s complete piano works is set to be a major recording event of the Fauré anniversary, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1924. Its 68 tracks will be available digitally as well as physically in a 4 CD box . A comprehensive set of sleeve notes notes includes Debargue’s own commentary on each piece, an analysis of Fauré’s approach to the piano writing and full details of the Paulello Opus 102 instrument. The pianist will include Fauré in his recitals throughout the coming year.

Featuring as the debut single is Fauré's Romance No. 3 in A-flat major from his "3 Romances sans paroles, Op. 17." Until the album release on March 22, listen to Lucas Debargue's beautiful rendition of the piece and pre-order your copy.