Biography
Born in 1959 to a musical
family, Raphaël Oleg enters the Conservatoire Superieur de Musique de Paris at
the age of twelve to study with Gérard Jarry.
He graduates in 1976 and continues his studies benefiting from the
precious advices of Henryk Szeryng, Christian Ferras, Emmanuel Krivine,
Jean-Jacques Kantorow. Fascinated by singing, he also attends master classes by
Pierre Bernac in 1977 and Elisabeth Schwartzkopf in 1980. This will be of major
influence and will shape his playing deeply for ever.
Gold Medal winner at the Tchaikovsky
Competition 1986 in Moscow, an award rarely given to non-Russians, he makes
spectacular debut this same year at the Lucerne Festival, replacing at short
notice Josef Suk with Vaclav Neumann and the Tcheque Philharmonic Orchestra.
Following these successes came invitations to perform
with Lorin Maazel (Philadelphia Orchestra), Jeffrey Tate (London Symphony
Orchestra), Riccardo Chailly (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra), Wolfgang
Sawallisch (Munich Staatsoper), Armin Jordan (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande,
Ensemble Orchestral de Paris), Semyon Byshkov, Günther Herbig (Orchestre de
Paris), Libor Pešek
(Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra), Yan-Pascal Tortelier (BBC
Philharmonic), Tadaaki Otaka (BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Yomiuri
Orchestra, NHK), Mark Wigglesworth (Dutch Youth Orchestra, Utrecht Philharmonic
Orchestra, BBC NoW), Ronald Zollman (Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM à Mexico City).
He goes on tour in Italy
and Switzerland (Orchestre National de France/Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville
Mariner/Academy of St-Martin in the Fields), United Kingdom (Evgueni
Svetlanov/Swedish Radio Orchestra, Kazushi Ono/Tokyo Philharmonic), Germany
(Paavo Berglund/Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Michel Plasson/Orchestre du
Capitole de Toulouse), Japan (Marek Janowsky/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-
France), Australia and New-Zealand with Libor Pesek, at
the Salzburg Festival with the Warsaw Philharmonic/Kazimierz Kord…
A keen chamber music
player, Raphaël Oleg has as regular partners Antonio Meneses, Barry Douglas,
François Guye, Clemens Hagen, Christian Ivaldi, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Emmanuel
Strosser, Artur Pizarro, Jean-Claude Pennetier, Anton Kuerti, Gérard Wyss,
Sonia Wieder-Atherton, François- Frédéric Guy, Jeremy Menuhin, Gary Hoffman,
the Ebene quartet, the Johannes quartet, the Sine Nomine quartet and the Manfred quartet. With
Josephine Knight and Artur Pizarro he just formed the Pizarro Trio
with a highly successful debut concert at the Wigmore Hall last November. The event has
already created a sensation as many proposals from major festivals in the UK
have followed.
Also very active in the
contemporary music field he has premiered violin concertos by Michel Decoust,
Renaud Gagneux, Serge Nigg (2nd Concerto), Philippe Racine (« Promenade »
at the Lucerne Festival) and Ivo Malec whose "Ottava Alta" he just
recorded for Timpani records (Diapason
d'Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique). In February 2006, he has given the premiere
of the viola concerto by Jindřich Feld in Dijon (he plays on a viola he has made himself in the workshop of
Jacques Fustier in Lyon…) The recording of this concert has been released under the label PRAGA (PRD/DSD 250 239)
Since 1995, Raphaël Oleg teaches at the Musik Akademie of Basel.
In 1997, the Académie des Beaux Arts
awarded Raphaël Oleg the Del Duca Price. He is also Chevalier des Arts et
Lettres.