An exceptional artist

An insatiably curious mind, a taste for risk, an immoderate appetite for the entire concerto cello repertoire without borders or chapel quarrels, civic engagement and an unconditional love of nature: these are undoubtedly what distinguishes this brilliant Franco-Swiss performer from an early age.

Elected "Instrumental Soloist Revelation" at the Victoires de la Musique Classique 2003, she has since performed in recital in Asia as well as in Europe and is invited by the most prestigious orchestras such as the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Metz National Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and the New Japan Philharmonic.

A rich repertoire and unique collaborations

Ophélie Gaillard records for Aparté several complete works awarded by the international press: Bach, Britten, Schumann, Fauré, Chopin, Brahms, CPE Bach, Strauss, as well as thematic albums that have won over a very wide audience, such as Dreams, Alvorada and Exils.

Passionate about encounters, she regularly shares the stage with Lambert Wilson, hip-hop dancer Ibrahim Sissoko, choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, Étoile dancers Hugo Marchand and Ludmila Pagliero, and bossa nova star singer Toquinho (live album Canto de sereia, recorded for Aparté at the MiTo festival in 2017).

In 2005, she founded the Pulcinella Orchestra, which she conducts from the cello and with which she explores the repertoires of the 17th and 18th centuries on period instruments.

After a double album dedicated to Boccherini in 2019, recorded with the complicity of Sandrine Piau, Ophélie Gaillard and Pulcinella achieved great public success with a double album Vivaldi, I colori dell'ombra, recorded at the height of the health crisis with mezzo-sopranos Lucile Richardot and Delphine Galou.

In early 2021, still with Aparté, Ophélie Gaillard offers a journey through 100 years of opera arias with her recording Cellopera, accompanied by the Vienna Morphing Orchestra under the direction of Frédéric Chaslin, featuring transcriptions for cello and orchestra of works by Mozart, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Offenbach and Puccini. In March 2022, with A Night in London, she takes us to meet the composers who ventured to London in the 1730s, such as Porpora, Geminiani and Bononcini.

For 2023, direction Naples with Sandrine Piau, Marina Viotti and Luan Goes for a colourful double album, featuring unpublished works by Porpora, concertos by Leo and Durante, gigues by Matteis and traditional Tarantellas.

An exceptional pedagogue and instrumentalist

A sought-after pedagogue, she has been professor at the Haute École de Musique de Genève since 2014 and is regularly invited for master-classes and as a jury member of major international competitions (ARD Munich, Geneva Competition, Amsterdam Cello Biennale, Isang Yun in Korea, Bach in Leipzig…).

Ophélie Gaillard plays a Francesco Goffriller cello from 1737 generously loaned by CIC and an anonymous Flemish piccolo cello.