Description
A radiant and generous personality, Emmanuelle Bertrand is recognized as a leading figure in European cello playing. Trained at the National Conservatories of Music and Dance in Lyon and Paris in the classes of Jean Deplace and Philippe Muller, and a laureate of numerous awards and international competitions, she was notably elected “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 with Harmonia Mundi. In 2017, the Academy of Fine Arts awarded her the prestigious Simone and Cino Del Duca Interpretation Prize. She has received two Victoires de la musique, “instrumental revelation” in 2002, then “instrumental soloist of the year” in 2022.
At 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, Edith Canat de Chizy, Pascal Amoyel, Bernard Cavanna, David Lampel, Thierry Escaich, and Benoît Menut. She also gave the world premiere of Luciano Berio’s Chanson pour Pierre Boulez.
It was also during this period that she formed a duo with pianist Pascal Amoyel, her partner both on stage and in life, with whom she fervently defends both forgotten works and major repertoire.
Passionate about the connections between music and words, she collaborates closely with Laurent Terzieff on texts by Jean-Pierre Siméon. In 2005, she co-wrote and performed with Pascal Amoyel in Le Block 15 ou la Musique en résistance, directed by Jean Piat. In 2011, she created Le violoncelle de guerre, a tribute to Maurice Maréchal and his cello made in the trenches in 1915. She toured with this program until 2018 with Didier Sandre, Christophe Malavoy, Francis Perrin, François Marthouret, and Richard Bohringer. In 2020, Robin Renucci cast her as Agafia in Gontcharov’s Oblomov (Tréteaux de France), allowing her to combine the roles of actress and musician.
She regularly performs as a soloist with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal, the National Orchestra of Ukraine, the State Symphony Orchestra of Moscow, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the National Orchestra of Athens, 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, Ile de France, Lorraine, and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Strasbourg, 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 cello professor in the history of the institution founded in 1795.
