Antoine Tamestit

The French violist Antoine Tamestit, who was born in 1979, was trained by Jean Sulem at the Paris Conservatoire, by Jesse Levine at Yale University, and by Tabea Zimmermann at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. His career began with four prestigious awards: he won the Concours Maurice Vieux in Paris and the William Primrose Competition in Chicago in 2000-01, the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York in 2003, and, in 2004, the ARD Music Competition, in which he also garnered the Audience Prize and two special prizes. He received the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2008, entailing a substantial cash award along with an appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic at Lucerne Festival. Antoine Tamestit has also performed with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He was a Portrait Artist with the London Symphony Orchestra and Capell-Virtuos with the Staatskapelle Dresden in the 2021-22 season and artist-in-residence at the Prague Spring Festival in 2023. Tamestit is strongly committed to contemporary music and has premiered works by Jörg Widmann, Thierry Escaich, Bruno Mantovani, Olga Neuwirth, and his father, Gérard Tamestit. As a chamber musician, he founded the Trio Zimmermann with Frank Peter Zimmermann and Christian Poltéra; he has also collaborated with the pianists Emanuel Ax, Nikolai Lugansky, Francesco Piemontesi, Cédric Tiberghien, and Yuja Wang; the violinist Leonidas Kavakos; the flutist Emmanuel Pahud; the clarinetist Martin Fröst; and Quatuor Ébène. Together with Nobuko Imai, he directs Viola Space, a viola festival that is held in Japan. Antoine Tamestit, who has received numerous awards for his recordings, accepted the City of Hanau’s Paul Hindemith Prize in 2022. He plays an instrument built by
Antonio Stradivari in 1672.

Lucerne Festival debut in a chamber concert on 12 August 2006 playing works of Brahms and Mendelssohn.

July 2023