Bios & promo — benchmark artistes

François-Frédéric Guy has enjoyed an international career alongside leading conductors such as Philippe Jordan, Kent Nagano, Daniel Harding and Esa-Pekka Salonen, performing with prestigious orchestras including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the BRSO, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Renowned as an illustrious interpreter of Beethoven's works, he is in demand around the world for recitals, orchestral performances and chamber music as part of his projects focusing on Beethoven's music. Curious about the music of his time, he performs works by many contemporary composers and regularly gives world premieres. He recently premiered Tristan Murail's concerto L'œil du Cyclone in Paris, London, Hamburg and Tokyo and has recorded a Debussy/Murail album. François-Frédéric is invited to serve as a jury member in major international competitions (Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Busoni, Dubai, Shanghai) and gives masterclasses at prestigious foundations (Lieven in Vienna, Villecroze, Bibliothèque La Grange-Fleuret, Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, etc.). Since 2012, he has regularly conducted various ensembles from the piano (Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Orchestre National de Lille, Sinfonia Varsovia, etc.) and, in September 2022, he will take over as musical director of the Microcosme ensemble, with which he will begin a complete performance of Mozart's concertos at the Cité Bleue in Geneva in December 2025. This year, he reunited with Philippe Jordan in Munich with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BRSO). His most recent concerts have taken him to Paris for recitals and performances with orchestras, to Wigmore Hall in London, to Portugal where he conducted Beethoven's five concertos and Chopin's two from the keyboard, and to Denmark, Switzerland and Japan with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. In the coming months, he will perform in France, Switzerland, Turkey, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Hong Kong, where he will play and conduct Beethoven's five concertos with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. The release of his box set of Beethoven's 32 sonatas for La Dolce Volta in February 2027 will be accompanied by numerous recitals and complete performances in France, Canada and Asia.

As an outstanding interpreter of the music of German Romantics and their forebears as well as contemporary compositions, François-Frédéric Guy is pursuing a steady international career as both a soloist and as an orchestral conductor from the piano. Alongside great conductors such as Kent Nagano, Daniel Harding and Esa-Pekka Salonen, he has worked with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna Symphony, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Seoul Philharmonic, or the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. He has performed with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra; at the Printemps des Arts in Monaco, he performed piano concertos by Bartók and Schönberg with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and he made his debut with the Munich Philharmonic under Philippe Jordan with Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2. Highlights of the 2025/26 season include his play-conduct engagements with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa at the Centro Cultural de Belém, presenting the complete Beethoven and Chopin piano concertos. He also regularly conducts the Swiss ensemble Microcosme from his piano, having been its musical director since 2021. In December 2025, he will begin a series of Mozart's complete concertos at the Cité Bleue in Geneva. Like few others, François-Frédéric Guy vividly realizes the compositional architecture of great works of the Classical and Romantic periods. He developed this ability particularly through his intensive dialogue with the music of Beethoven. His performances of the cycle of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas have been celebrated worldwide, most recently in Seoul. The pianist also has a special affinity for Bartók, Brahms, Liszt, and Prokofiev, as well as for contemporary music. He is closely associated with the composers Tristan Murail, Ivan Fedele, Marc Monnet, and Hugues Dufourt, among others. The latest concerto premiere was Tristan Murail's piano concerto L'oeil du cyclone, co-commissioned by the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Orchestra Philhamonique de Radio France, the BBC Symphony, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2023/24. François-Frédéric Guy regularly conducts Beethoven's piano concertos as well as works by Mozart, Chopin, and Brahms from the piano. In the dual role as pianist and conductor, he has been working closely for several years with the Sinfonia Varsovia as well as with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, with whom he was artist-in-residence from 2017 to 2020. Guest appearances include collaborations with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, and the Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire. Solo recitals have brought him to major concert halls in London, Milan, Berlin, Munich, Moscow, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, and Washington, and to festivals such as the Chopin Festival Warsaw, the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Cheltenham Festival, and the Piano Festivals in La Roque d'Anthéron and Lille. He was also artist-in-residence at the Arsenal de Metz from 2014 to 2017. Having been featured as portrait artist at Wigmore Hall in the 2022/23 season, he has since then returned to the hall with various projects and chamber music partners. He recently enjoyed great success there with the Quatuor Danel, with whom he is continuing to collaborate in the current season. The centrepiece of his discography is the complete recording of the Beethoven sonatas for the Zig-Zag Territoires label, which had already released his highly acclaimed Liszt album with the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. In 2023, he released Secret Garden at La Dolce Volta featuring selected works by Chopin, recorded on a restored Pleyel piano from 1905. In the field of contemporary music, the CD Révolutions with the music of Tristan Murail and the Préludes of Debussy was released in 2022, following his recording of Marc Monnet's piano cycle En Pièces in early 2021. On the occasion of the "Beethoven Year 2020", the complete recording of the Beethoven piano concertos under François-Frédéric Guy's overall direction with the Sinfonia Varsovia was released. His 2017 Brahms album of the three piano sonatas was followed in spring 2021 by a recording of Brahms's viola sonatas and trio.

François-Frédéric Guy (born 23 January 1969) is a French classical pianist. Born in Vernon, Eure, Guy entered the Conservatoire de Paris at age 11 and worked with Dominique Merlet and Christian Ivaldi. Graduated in 1980, in 1989, he won the first special jury prize at the Munich Competition and in 1992, first prize and the interpretation prize at the Pretoria Unisa Competition. In 1994, he was invited to the Lake Como Foundation and met there Karl Ulrich Schnabel (Artur Schnabel's son), Leon Fleisher, Murray Perahia, Charles Rosen, Fou Ts'ong and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Since his debut with the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch followed by a live recording of Brahms' 2nd piano concerto with Paavo Berglund and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Guy established himself as a prominent pianist. He has worked with conductors including Daniel Harding, Edvard Gardner, Philippe Jordan, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michaël Sanderling and Michael Tilson Thomas. He is a regular guest of the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra. He participates in major festivals including the Lucerne Festival, Chopin competition in Warsaw, Festival de La Roque-d'Anthéron, and Beethovenfest in Bonn. In 2006, he made his debut at The Proms in London with the Philharmonia under Esa-Pekka Salonen. Since 2008, Guy has dedicated himself to a "Beethoven Project," releasing complete sonatas on disc. He performs contemporary works by composers including Hugues Dufourt, Bruno Mantovani, and Marc Monnet. From 2012, he has led Beethoven and Mozart concertos from the keyboard with various orchestras. Guy began a "Brahms project" in 2016.

François-Frédéric Guy is widely regarded first and foremost as an outstanding interpreter of the German Romantics and their forebears. His unrivalled ability to create musical structure in sound is especially evident in his interpretations of Beethoven, which bring to life his profound and ongoing dialogue with the composer. His acclaimed performances of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas, already performed in e.g. Tokyo, Washington, Paris, Monte Carlo and Buenos Aires, will take him this season to Seoul. The pianist also has a special affinity with the music of Bartók, Brahms, Liszt, and Prokofiev and a strong commitment to contemporary music. Conducting from the piano, François-Frédéric Guy regularly performs works by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms, and latest a world premiere by Aurélien Dumont together with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, where he has been artist in residence from 2017 to 2020. The complete recording of Beethoven's piano concertos with the Sinfonia Varsovia under his direction was released to mark the start of the "Beethoven Year" 2020. As a soloist, the pianist has been a guest of orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Orchestre de Paris or Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich and has collaborated with world-famous conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kazushi Ono, Marc Albrecht, Philippe Jordan, Neeme Järvi, Michael Tilson Thomas, Gustavo Gimeno, and Kent Nagano. In the current season, he is further invited to perform under Sakari Oramo with the BBC Symphony and will premiere Tristan Murail's piano concerto together with NHK Symphony in Tokyo.