Lisa Batiashvili, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Gautier Capuçon are world-famous soloists and close friends. They perform as a trio, not least to see each other.
If you want to describe them glamorously, then Lisa Batiashvili, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Gautier Capuçon can be described as classical music stars. Their audiences have been following their careers for years, and concert halls in very different parts of the world fill up easily when the violinist, pianist or cellist perform with symphony orchestras in Montréal, Los Angeles, Tokyo or Munich. All three have long been associated with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich: Lisa Batiashvili was our focus artist in the 2015/16 season, Gautier Capuçon accompanied the orchestra on a European tour in 2017 and Jean-Yves Thibaudet recently delighted many people at tonhalleAIR in the Münsterhof, in the centre of Zurich.
A career as a soloist goes hand in hand with constant travelling. Almost every season, somewhere in the world, Lisa Batiashvili, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Gautier Capuçon are bound to miss each other from one concert week to the next. This is a great pity in the case of these three, because: "We are old friends and very close," says Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a telephone interview. "We have a connection, the chemistry is just right."
He conducts the interview from his adopted home of Los Angeles. Not only does he live here, he also teaches at the Colburn School and is the first artist-in-residence at this training centre for young musical talent. For the past eight years, the school has been awarding Jean-Yves Thibaudet scholarships to students who are selected by the pianist regardless of their instrument.
Lisa Batiashvili is also driven by her vocation to look after the next generation of artists, which led to the establishment of her foundation in 2021. "There comes a time when you feel you have to support the next generation instead of just focussing on your own career," she says in a video for the Lisa Batiashvili Foundation. This became particularly clear to her when she heard exceptional talents in Georgia. She herself left her home country when she was still a child to study the violin in Germany. She has lived in Munich for many years with her husband, the French oboist and conductor François Leleux. Finally, Gautier Capuçon is only in his mid-40s, but he too wants to let the younger generation benefit from his musical connections. Not least because of the experiences that artists were confronted with during the coronavirus pandemic, he founded the Fondation Gautier Capuçon in 2022, which focuses on young French musicians. The two Frenchmen of this three-way friendship are also pursuing their commitment together: Gautier Capuçon, who lives in Paris, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet are artistic advisors to a festival that promotes young talent, the Festival Musique & Vin au Clos Vougeot in Burgundy.
"Because we are so busy with our careers, we don't get together often enough. The only way to see each other regularly is to give concerts together," says Jean-Yves Thibaudet. They give these around the world. The next reunion as part of a chamber music concert will take place in Zurich.
The pianist is not only looking forward to seeing his two friends: "The Tonhalle has very natural acoustics that are neither too loud nor too quiet. There aren't many stages where it's nice for a musician to play and that work well for the audience at the same time. It's a warm audience, it also seems like an old friend to me."
