Biography

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s 2017-18 season highlights include return engagements with the Seattle Symphony, NHK Symphony, and BBC Symphony orchestras. He also appears at the Philharmonie de Paris with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and performs with the Detroit Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. 

Recent performances include an appearance at the BBC Proms performing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with the BBC Philharmonic; Carnegie Hall, as part of a major North American tour with the London Philharmonic; as well as concerts with Zurich Opera House Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda, HR Symphony Orchestra, and a tour with Les Siécles, which included a concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

In recital, Mr. Bavouzet regularly performs at venues such as The Louvre in Paris and London’s Wigmore Hall, and he has collaborated with composer Jörg Widmann in a chamber music project at the Prinzregententheater in Munich. To mark the 2018 centennial of Debussy’s death, Mr. Bavouzet performs an extended recital program of Debussy’s works, presented by the Barbican Centre at Milton Court and at the 2018 Perth International Arts Festival. Bavouzet performs an extended recital program of all Debussy’s works, presented by the Barbican Centre at Milton Court and at the 2018 Perth International Arts Festival. He also gives several recitals throughout Europe, the UK, and North America.

Mr. Bavouzet records exclusively for the Chandos label. His disc of the complete Prokofiev piano concertos with BBC Philharmonic won a 2014 Gramophone Award. Together with the Manchester Camerata, Mr. Bavouzet has recorded several of Haydn’s piano concertos and embarked on a series of Mozart concertos. Other recordings include the complete Beethoven sonatas, Bartók’s piano concertos with the BBC Philharmonic, and Stravinsky’s complete works for piano and orchestra with Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Mr. Bavouzet’s recording of the Ravel piano concertos with the BBC Symphony won both Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine awards, while others have garnered additional Gramophone awards and BBC Music Magazine awards, a Diapason d’Or, and Choc de l’année. He is currently recording a Haydn piano sonata cycle. 

Mr. Bavouzet has worked closely with Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Kurtág, Maurice Ohana, and Bruno Mantovani and is also a champion of lesser-known French music—notably that of Gabriel Pierné and Albéric Magnard. He is the International Chair in Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music. He made his SFS debut in 2012.

(April 2015)