Georges Pludermacher, piano

Combining the talent of a prestigious virtuoso with the daring to give performances that are often as original as they are demanding, Georges Pludermacher has today won universal renown as a pianist. He was only three years old when he began to play the piano and only eleven when he was accepted into the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris, where he studied under Lucette DESCAVES and Jacques FEVRIER, and later under Geneviève JOY and Henriette PUIG. He won many First Prizes, and quickly added several international awards to the list of his successes: Second Prize in the Competitions of Vianna da Mota and Leeds, and most importantly, the only prize to be given at the Geza Anda Competition in 1979. His solo career quickly led him to perform under the direction of such acclaimed conductors as Sir Georg SOLTI (Chicago Symphony), Christophe von DOHNANNYI (French National Orchestra) and Pierre BOULEZ (at the head of the London Sinfonia). Moreover, he began to show a fondness for chamber music, which he says contributed greatly to his musical development, particularly as a result of his involvement with the violinists Christian FERRAS and Ivry GITLIS, and with his undisputed master, the great Nathan MILSTEIN. Today, Georges Pludermacher enjoys a rewarding collaboration with the Pasquier Trio and the Amadeus Quartet, and the outstanding partnership of Ernst HÄFFLINGER (cycles of Schubert, Schumann and Schönberg), Michel PORTAL, Youri BASHMET and Jean-François HEISSER. A regular guest of the most important festivals both in France and abroad (including Salzbourg, Vienna, Montreux, Aix-en-Provence, Edinburgh, Avignon, Florence, Tours, Strasbourg, Barcelona and Madrid), Georges Pludermacher has become famous for a wide-ranging repertoire that allows him to combine his taste for a challenge with his love of secrecy. Indeed, far from shying away from the obligations of performance, he has both produced innovative and personal interpretations of the great works - the complete Sonatas of Mozart and Schubert - and set great store by internalization and concentration. It was this latter predilection that motivated his performance of Debussy’s Etudes, which earned him the triple acclaim of the Monde de Musique, Diapason and the Grand Prix de l’Académie du Disque, and again his choice of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, which won the Grand Prize of the Charles CROS Academy. He has recorded the Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas and piano concertos with Orchestre de Bretagne under the baton of Moshe Atzmon, as well as Schubert, Debussy and Ravel piano works, for the label TRANSART LIVE, during the Flâneries Musicales d’Eté de Reims. While he is thus following a brilliant career as a pianist, Georges Pludermacher remains an artist of many talents. An invaluable guide to the origins of contemporary music (being published in Domaine Musical, Musique Vivante etc), and a great amateur performer of the jazz music in which he can rediscover the ‘inventiveness’ he holds so dear, he also keeps up his work as a teacher (at the C.N.S.M.). Less frequently, but with the same elan and efficiency, he also finds time to write music and participate in debates. An ardent opponent of rigid musical interpretations, this artist brings a unique combination of thoroughness and invention, artistic depth and virtuosity to all the works he performs; he uses the old stylistic qualities of the piano in a new atmosphere of recreation.

GEORGES PLUDERMACHER	DISCOGRAPHY