Victor Julien-Laferrière
Cello
First Prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2017 (the first year dedicated to cello), Victor Julien-Laferrière was described as “one of the most reliable talents of the young generation of French cellists” by Diapason magazine. He was also awarded the first prize and two special prizes at the 2012 Prague Spring International Competition, and in 2018 he was awarded the Victoire de la Musique in France as Instrumental Soloist of the Year.
The 2024/25 season sees his orchestra debut in Canada with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as well as play-direct performances with Taiwan Baroque Camerata and multiple experiences at the Music Festival Pohang. He performs chamber music recitals with Daniel Lozakovich, Alexandre Kantorow and Jonathan Fournel at London Symphony Orchestra St. Luke’s Hall as part of the BBC Radio 3 Series, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Salle de Musique de la Chaux-de-Fonds, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and a solo recital at Auditorium de Radio France. He also tours in several festivals and venues in France such as Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, la Chaise-Dieu with the orchestra he founded, Orchestre Consuelo, where he appears as conductor.
Further afield, Victor Julien-Laferrière has performed with renowned orchestras worldwide, including Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de France, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Belgium National Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre Paris, Orchestre National de Lyon, Les Siècles, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and with prestigious conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Kristiina Poska, Emmanuel Krivine, Karina Canellakis, Tugan Sokhiev, Mikko Franck, Elim Chan, Maxim Emelyanychev, François-Xavier Roth, Jun Märkl, Philippe Herreweghe, Nathalie Stutzmann, Stéphane Denève, Joshua Weilerstein, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Gergely Madaras and Ben Glassberg.
His recital and chamber music projects have led him to perform in prestigious venues and festivals such as Konzerthaus Wien, Lucerne KKL, Brussels BOZAR, Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Tonhalle Zurich, Philharmonie de Paris, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Essen Philharmonie, Phillips Collection in Washington, Prague Spring International Music Festival, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Rheingau Musik Festival, Roque d’Anthéron Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Brussels Cello Festival, Copenhagen Summer Festival, Folles Journées in Nantes and Tokyo.
Victor Julien-Laferrière is also developing substantial activity as a conductor. He has guest-conducted Orchestre National d’Île-de-France and Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen on tour as well as Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and his ensemble Orchestre Consuelo.
In addition, he has recorded numerous albums. In January 2019, Victor Julien-Laferrière recorded an album dedicated to Schubert, in collaboration with Les Esprits trio (Sony Music), which received the highest rating from French magazine Télérama. His latest recordings for Alpha Classics include a critically acclaimed album dedicated to Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, and Denisov with pianist Jonas Vitaud (2019), a recording of the Dvořák and Martinů concertos with Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège conducted by Gergely Madaras (2021) and more recently Dutilleux and Dusapin’s cello concertos with Orchestre National de France conducted by Kristiina Poska and David Robertson, which received the Diapason d’Or.
Victor Julien-Laferrière studied with René Benedetti, then successively with Roland Pidoux at the Paris Conservatoire, Heinrich Schiff at Vienna University, and Clemens Hagen at Salzburg Mozarteum in Salzburg. He also participated in the Seiji Ozawa International Music Academy Switzerland from 2005 to 2011. He plays on a cello by Domenico Montagnana and with a bow by Dominique Peccatt.
Michel Beroff
Piano
Michel Beroff was born in France in 1950. After graduating from the Paris conservatoire in 1966, he won the following year the first prize at the first international Olivier Messiaen piano competition. He has since been considered one of the most outstanding interpreters of Messiaen’s music. He then went on to play with the most prestigious orchestras around the world under the direction of such conductors as Abbado, Barenboim, Bernstein, Boulez, Dohnanyi, Dorati, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Gielen, Inbal, Jochum, Leinsdorf, Masur, Ozawa, Previn, Rostropovitch, Sinopoli, Solti, Tennsted, Tilson-Thomas, Zinman.
As a chamber music partner, he has been very active playing with Martha Argerich, Barbara Hendricks Jean-Philippe Collard, Augustin Dumay, Pierre Amoyal, Lynn Harrell. As a conductor, Michel Beroff has been conducting the chamber orchestra de la Scala de Milano, the Russian state Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Cannes chamber orchestra, the Berkeley symphony, the Montréal youth orchestra.
He is currently teaching at the Paris Conservatoire. Exclusive EMI artist for over 25 years, Michel Beroff has published more than 50 recordings ; among them the complete works for piano and orchestra from Liszt, Prokofieff and Stravinsky , conducted by Seiji Ozawa and Kurt Masur. For Deutsche Grammophon, he has recorded Ravel’s left hand concerto with the LSO and Claudio Abbado. His latest recordings include the complete piano music from Debussy for the Japanese label Denon.
Michel Beroff has been awarded five times the “Grand Prix du Disque”. As a publisher, he participated for Wiener Urtext , to a new edition of Debussy’s piano music. For the japanese network NHK, he realized, in 2006, a series of fifteen master-classes on french music. During the last seasons, Michel Beroff played with the LSO under Pierre Boulez, the New-York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur, as well as the London Philharmonic for an extensive tour to England and Spain.
He undertook three japanese tours, including one with the Philarmonia with Esa-Pekka Salonen, played in concert in Paris the complete works for piano from Debussy and Janacek, and two Prokofieff concerto with the Orchestre de Paris and Christophe Eschenbach. He also toured extensively in Germany, Holland, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Greece, Brasil, Korea. In the past years, he has been serving as a jury member in many important piano competitions, including Tchaikovsky, Van Cliburn, Leeds, Clara Haskil, Rubinstein, and Marguerite Long competitions, among others.
Many of his students have won top prizes at international competitions ; the latest one has been SeongJin CHO, who won the Chopin competition in Warsaw in October 2016.