A radiant and generous personality, Emmanuelle Bertrand is recognized as a leading figure of the European cello scene. She was trained at the Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs de Musique et de Danse of Lyon and Paris in the classes of Jean Deplace and Philippe Muller, and has won numerous awards and international competitions. In particular, she was voted “Artist of the Year” in France by Diapason magazine and the listeners of France Musique (2011), and has received the Diapason d’Or of the Year three times for her recordings released by Harmonia Mundi. In 2017, the Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded her the prestigious Simone and Cino Del Duca Interpretation Prize. She has also received two Victoires de la Musique: “Instrumental Revelation” in 2002 and “Instrumental Soloist of the Year” in 2022.

At the age of 25, she met the composer Henri Dutilleux, who described her as a “true revelation.” Since then, she has been the dedicatee of works by Nicolas Bacri, Édith Canat de Chizy, Pascal Amoyel, Bernard Cavanna, David Lampel, Thierry Escaich and Benoît Menut. She also gave the world premiere of Chanson pour Pierre Boulez by Luciano Berio.

It was also during this period that she founded a duo with the pianist Pascal Amoyel, her partner in life and on stage, with whom she passionately defends both forgotten works and major repertoire.

Passionate about the relationship between music and words, she worked closely with Laurent Terzieff on texts by Jean-Pierre Siméon. In 2005, she co-wrote and performed with Pascal Amoyel Le Block 15 ou la Musique en résistance, staged by Jean Piat. In 2011, she created Le violoncelle de guerre in tribute to Maurice Maréchal and his cello made in the trenches in 1915. She toured with this program until 2018, successively with Didier Sandre, Christophe Malavoy, Francis Perrin, François Marthouret and Richard Bohringer. In 2020, Robin Renucci entrusted her with the role of Agafia in Oblomov by Goncharov (Tréteaux de France), allowing her to combine the roles of actress and musician.

She regularly performs as a soloist, notably with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, the National Orchestra of Ukraine, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Athens National Orchestra, the Busan Symphony Orchestra (Korea), the Musica Vitae Orchestra of Sweden, the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, the Wuhan Symphony Orchestra (China), the National Orchestras of Lille, Île-de-France and Lorraine, and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Strasbourg and Monte Carlo.

She teaches chamber music and cello at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. She is the first woman to have been appointed professor of cello in the history of the institution, founded in 1795.