JEAN-BERNARD POMMIER

PIANIST and CONDUCTOR

Biographical and career notes.

Jean-Bernard Pommier played the piano from the age of four (taught by the Russian pianist Mina Koslova), gave his first public concert at the age of seven and went on to study piano at the Paris Conservatoire with Yves Nat and Pierre Sancan as well as conducting with Eugène Bigot. In New York he worked with the great American pianist Eugene Istomin.

International recognition came quickly. In 1960 he received First Prize in the Young Musicians International Competition in Berlin, in 1961 was awarded the "Prix de la Guilde des Artistes Solistes Français" whilst in 1962 (at the age of seventeen) he was the youngest finalist in the Tschaikowsky Competition, Moscow, awarded First Honourable Mention by the jury presided over by Emil Gilels.

Ten years later Pommier began a long relationship with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan both in Berlin and Salzburg whilst his regular appearances with the Orchestre de Paris have included a "Beethoven cycle" conducted by Daniel Barenboim. More recently he is enjoying an increasingly active career in the role of Conductor working with major orchestras in Europe and America. Pommier is regularly invited to the world's most prestigious Festivals where his consummate musicianship and wide-ranging repertoire is in great demand whether taking masterclasses or as pianist, solo-director, conductor, or chamber music performer. For many years Pommier ran his own Festival at L'Abbaye de Fontfroide in his native Languedoc. In 2006 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Menton Festival, France.

A happy association of twenty years with the Northern Sinfonia of England culminated in his 3 year appointment in 1996 as Artistic Director, whilst in 1997 he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Orchestra Filharmonica di Torino. Most recently he is the founder and Artistic Director of the Musikè International Academy, active in France, Hungary and UK.

Résumé:

As a solo pianist Jean-Bernard Pommier has appeared with such leading orchestras and conductors as :

BBC Philharmonic	BBC Symphony	Chicago Symphony
Concertgebouw	Hallé	Israel Philharmonic
London Philharmonic	London Symphony	Los Angeles Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic	NHK Tokyo	Philharmonia
St Petersburg Philharmonic	Pittsburgh Symphony	Rochester Symphony
Royal Philharmonic	Tokyo Philharmonic	Vienna Philharmonic
Daniel Barenboim	Roberto Benzi	Herbert Blomstedt
Pierre Boulez	Semyon Bychkov	Paul Capolongo
Jean-Claude Casadessus	Aldo Ceccato	Charles Dutoit
Lawrence Foster	Bernard Haitink	Gunter Herbig
Herbert von Karajan	Kyril Kondrashin	Alain Lombard
Kurt Masur	Sir Charles Mackerras	Zubin Mehta
Jorge Mester	Riccardo Muti	John Nelson
Michel Plasson	Georges Prêtre	Sir Simon Rattle
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky	Kurt Sanderling	Gerald Schwarz
Jerzy Semkow	Stanislav Skrowaczewsky	Leonard Slatkin
Michael Tilson-Thomas	Yan-Pascal Tortellier	Edo de Waart
David Zinman

As a conductor he has appeared with :

Budapest Symphony	Czech Philharmonic	Leipzig Radio
Orchestre National de France	Orchestre de Paris	Orch Ph de Radio France
Philharmonia, London	RAI Torino	Rotterdam Philharmonic
Royal Philharmonic	Salzburg Mozarteum	San Francisco Symphony
Tonhalle Zurich	Warsaw Philharmonic

In the dual role of pianist and conductor he frequently appears with :

Chamber Orchestra of Europe	Chamber Orch of Lausanne	English Chamber Orch
Israel Chamber Orchestra	Northern Sinfonia of England	Scottish Chamber Orch
Sinfonia Varsovia

His chamber music partners have included :

Alexander Schneider	Guarneri Quartet	Isaac Stern
Itzhak Perlman	Jean-Pierre Rampal	Leonard Rose
Maurice Bourgue	Paul Tortelier	Pinchas Zukerman
Vermeer Quartet	Jaime Laredo	Bruno Pasquier
Marco Rizzi	Sergei Girschenko	Dmitri Yablonsky
Gary Hoffman	Christoph Richter	Vladimir Stopichev
Olga Martinova		Olivier Charlier

He has appeared as Recitalist in such major centres as :

Amsterdam	Berlin	Chicago
Dresden	Leipzig	London
Moscow	Paris	Tel Aviv
Vienna

He has given masterclasses in :

Chicago	Lausanne	London
Melbourne	Tokyo	Durham

Jean-Bernard Pommier is an active recording artist. His extensive discography includes :

BACH	Toccatas and Inventions	EMI
BEETHOVEN	Complete Piano Sonatas	Erato
BRAHMS CHOPIN	Complete Violin Sonatas (Laredo) Complete Waltzes	Virgin Erato
	Recital : Sonata No 3	Erato
DEBUSSY	Preludes, Images	Virgin
MOZART	Complete Sonatas	Virgin
	Concertos K503 & K537	Erato
	Concertos K467 & K488	Virgin
RACHMANINOFF	Concerto No 2	Virgin
SCHUMANN	Novelettes	EMI
TCHAIKOVSKY	Great Sonata	EMI
	Concerto No 1	Virgin