Jean-Guihen Queyras

The early career of cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras (born Montreal, Canada, in 1967) was heavily influenced by playing in the Paris-based Ensemble InterContemporain under its legendary director Pierre Boulez. There, Queyras worked with contemporary composers such as Berio, Lachenmann, and Ligeti, recording the latter’s Cello Concerto in 1992. Queyras’ sinewy tone and outstanding technical agility proved as suited to Baroque music as to contemporary, and he gradually developed an exceptionally wide range of repertoire from Bach and Vivaldi onward, both in concert and on recordings. While using a modern cello much of the time, Queyras has also experimented with period instruments, making acclaimed recordings of Haydn, Schumann, and Beethoven concertos with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. He is a keen chamber musician, co-founding the Arcanto Quartet Rencontres Musicales festival in Haute-Provence. He also plays in a piano trio with violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Alexander Melnikov.