Cello
BIOGRAPHY GAUTIER CAPUÇON Gautier Capuçon is a true ambassador for the cello today. He performs each season with the world's most renowned conductors and instrumentalists. In January 2022, he extended his commitment to education and mentoring young artists by creating his own Foundation to help young musicians launch their careers. The Gautier Capuçon Foundation now has 36 laureates. Gautier Capuçon is widely recognized for his highly expressive musicality, his virtuosity, and the rich, resonant tone of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller "L'Ambassadeur" cello.
During the summer of 2020, amidst the pandemic, Gautier Capuçon launched his "Un été en France" (A Summer in France) tour, a musical journey that allowed families across the country to attend live concerts. He repeated the experience in 2021, this time inviting young instrumentalists and dancers to join him on stage. To date, the initiative has attracted over 145,000 spectators, presented 80 concerts in 66 cities and towns, and showcased 69 emerging artists alongside him. Five documentaries have already been made about the tour, and a new one will be released between Christmas and New Year's Day 2025.

Highlights of past seasons with orchestras include concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic and Christian Thielemann, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Andris Nelson, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Stéphane Denève, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Christoph Koncz, as well as touring with the Filarmonica della Scala and Ricardo Chailly, the Hr-SinfonieOrchester Frankfurt and Alain Altinoglu, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Lahav Shani.
He recently toured Europe and performed at Carnegie Hall with Evgeny Kissin, as well as with Rudolf Buchbinder, Renaud Capuçon, and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. As a chamber musician, he is invited annually to perform with partners such as Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Lisa Batiashvili, Frank Braley, Renaud Capuçon, Jérôme Ducros, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang, and the Artemis, Ébène, Hagen, and Modigliani Quartets. Gautier Capuçon also founded the Capucelli Ensemble, alongside six cellists who graduated from his Classe d'Excellence, with whom he has performed in Europe and Taiwan.
The 2025/26 season will see Gautier Capuçon touring with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, in residence with the Saxon State Orchestra Dresden, and performing with the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra for the opening of the Dvořák Festival in Prague and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Gautier Capuçon will also perform with the Orchestre de Paris and Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the San Francisco Symphony and Simone Young, and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and Paavo Järvi.
Throughout his career, Gautier Capuçon has cultivated numerous and enduring musical friendships. He is a regular guest conductor each season with the world's leading orchestras, including the Berlin, Vienna, Los Angeles, and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as the Chicago, San Francisco, and London Symphony Orchestras. He has worked with conductors such as Lionel Bringuier, Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Järvi, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and Tugan Sokhiev.

Chamber music highlights include concerts with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Lisa Batiashvili, and a recital tour with Nikolai Lugansky.
He also collaborates with many contemporary composers, such as Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Bryce Dessner, Richard Dubugnon, Henri Dutilleux, Jérôme Ducros, Danny Elfman, Thierry Escaich, Joe Hisaishi, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Andrew Norman, Krzysztof Penderecki, Max Richter, Wolfgang Rihm, and Jörg Widmann.

An exclusive artist with Erato (Warner Music), Capuçon boasts a rich discography that has earned him numerous awards. Following Intuition, his album Émotions (2020), featuring works by Debussy, Schubert, Elgar, and other composers, was certified gold in France, topping the charts for over 30 weeks and selling over 100,000 copies worldwide. His next album, Sensations (2022), became the first classical recording to reach number one on the French charts across all genres, followed by Destination Paris (2023). His latest album (autumn 2024) features concertos by Elgar and Walton with Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra.
His previous recordings include the Shostakovich concertos with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra, Saint-Saëns with Lionel Bringuier and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the complete Beethoven sonatas with Frank Braley, Schubert's Quintet with the Quatuor Ébène, Intuition with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Douglas Boyd, as well as live recordings with Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Bernard Haitink. He has also recorded Beethoven's piano trios with Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley, sonatas by Franck and Chopin with Yuja Wang, a solo album, "Souvenirs" (Bach, Dutilleux, Kodály), and a "Best-of" compilation released especially for his 40th birthday.
Latest release: in November 2025 (Warner Classics), the album "Gaïa," featuring 17 works written for Gautier Capuçon by composers from diverse cultural backgrounds (Max Richter, Bryce Dessner, Ludovico Einaudi, Joe Hisaishi, Gabriela Montero, Abel Selacoe), inspired by nature and the Earth. For these creations, he collaborated with his longtime partners Frank Braley, Jérôme Ducros, and the Capucelli Ensemble. "Gaïa" was presented in concert in November 2025 with the San Francisco Symphony.
Gautier Capuçon also appears on numerous live DVDs, including Haydn's Concerto No. 1 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel, Brahms' Double Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili, the Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann.
In addition, he is an ambassador for the Orchestre à l'École (Orchestra at School) association, which works to introduce music into schools through three- to four-year learning programs. Today, there are 1,630 school orchestras spread across 100 departments, involving 44,000 children. More than 184,000 students have already benefited from this program.
In January 2021, Gautier Capuçon was promoted to the rank of Knight in the National Order of the Legion of Honour.
From 2019 to 2025, he hosted Les carnets de Gautier Capuçon on Radio Classique every weekday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Famous in France, he frequently appears on television and has been part of the jury of the show Prodiges on France 2 since its creation in 2014, a show that attracts more than three million viewers every year at Christmas.
Born in 1981 in Chambéry, Gautier Capuçon began playing the cello at the age of five with Augustin Lefèbvre and studied in Paris with Annie Cochet-Zakine and Philippe Muller, then in Vienna with Heinrich Schiff. He has received several first prizes in international competitions, including the First Grand Prize at the André Navarra International Competition in Toulouse.