Aurélien Pascal (cello) & Rémi Geniet (piano)

The Pharos Arts Foundation, with the kind support of Institut Français de Chypre, presents a unique cello and piano recital with two of the most prominent French artists of the younger generation: Aurélien Pascal and Rémi Geniet. Laureate of several prestigious international competitions, including the Paulo Competition in Finland and the Emanuel Feuermann Competition in Germany, the 24-year-old cellist Aurélien Pascal has already performed as a soloist with some of the most renowned orchestras, and he has appeared in prestigious festivals and concert halls around the world. Current season will see him appearing at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, the Cellofest in Finland and Salle Gaveau in Paris before arriving to Cyprus to join forces with the exciting young pianist Rémi Geniet. A prize winner of the prestigious Bonn International Beethoven Competition and the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition, Rémi Geniet has appeared in major venues with renowned orchestras including the philharmonic orchestras of St. Petersburg, Lille, Montpellier, Nice and Armenia and he won a “Diapason d’ Or” for his debut all-Bach CD. For their concert in Cyprus, which will take place on Thursday 14 March at The Shoe Factory, Nicosia / 8:30pm, Pascal and Geniet will perform an exciting programme of works by Rachmaninov, Debussy, Fauré, Boulanger, Piazzolla and Ducros.

AURÉLIEN PASCAL cello

At only 24 years old, French cellist Aurélien Pascal already commands international attention for his “unparalleled virtuosity and musical intuition.” (The Strad)

Laureate of several prestigious international competitions, including the Second Prize of the 2013 International Paulo Competition in Finland, and the Grand Prix, the Audience’s Prize and the Best Performance Prize of the Ernst Toch Concerto at the 2014 Emanuel Feuermann Competition in Germany, Aurélien Pascal was also the fourth prizewinner and the youngest finalist in the 2017 Queen Elisabeth Competition.

Aurélien performs as a soloist with orchestras throughout Europe including the Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphony, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrucken, Nuremberg Symphony, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Monte Carlo Philharmonic and Barcelona Symphony Orchestra with conductors such as Vladimir Fedoseyev, John Storgårds, Pascal Rophé, Christoph Poppen, Clemens Schuldt and Augustin Dumay. A regular visitor to Asia, he has been invited by the Hiroshima Symphony, Kansai and Sendai Philharmonic orchestras and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, with which he has performed several times both in Hong Kong and on their European tour in 2017. He has recently made his debuts with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and Gilbert Varga, the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrei Feher, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra and Okko Kamu.

As a recitalist, Aurélien Pascal frequently appears in some of the most prestigious festivals, including Verbier, Colmar, Prades, Schloss Elmau, the Flâneries de Reims, La Folle Journée de Nantes et du Japon, Festival de Radio-France Montpellier, Beethovenfest de Bonn and the Rencontres musicales d'Evian with partners such as the Modigliani Quartet, Pavel Kolesnikov, Christian Tetzlaff, Augustin Dumay, András Schiff, Eric Le Sage, Paloma Kouider and Emmanuel Pahud, and he regularly forms a string trio with Adrien La Marca and Liya Petrova. Since being awarded the Audience Prize at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in 2015, he has been a regular invitee to the festival and also performs on stages including the Berlin Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, the Auditoriums of the Musée du Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, Salle Gaveau and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, as well as the ARK NOVA/Lucerne Festival mobile concert hall in Japan.

Highlights of the 2018/19 season include performances at the Konzerthaus Berlin alongside Andras Schiff, at the BOZAR in Brussels, the Beethovenhaus in Bonn and at the Cellofest in Finland. Aurélien will also return to the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival to give several concerts and to Salle Gaveau in Paris to give his first solo recital. In concerto, he performs with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Metz, Orchestre de Bretagne and the Orchestre de Douai-Hauts de France.

In 2015, Aurélien Pascal was accepted into the Sponsorship Programme of the Orpheum Foundation for the Advancement of Young Soloists and following his performance of Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1 at the Zurich Tonhalle with the Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Fedoseyev, he was invited to record the Franz Danzi Cello Concerto for the SONY label with the Munich Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Howard Griffiths. The recording, released in January 2018, is the latest addition to Aurélien’s discography, which includes the Ravel Trio, with Denis Pascal and Svetlin Roussev and the Brahms Sextet with Augustin Dumay, Henri Demarquette, Miguel da Silva.

Born in 1994 into a family of musicians, Aurélien Pascal studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris with Philippe Müller and attended master classes by the legendary János Starker in Paris, Basel and Bloomington. He is currently a student of Frans Helmerson and Gary Hoffman at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. He plays a French cello made in 1850 by Charles-Adolphe Gand.

RÉMI GENIET piano

Since being the youngest prizewinner in the Bonn International Beethoven Competition in 2011, and after winning the Second Prize in the 2013 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition at the age of 20, Rémi Geniet has fast established himself as one of the most prominent pianists of his generation.

Rémi Geniet has been invited to perform with many international orchestras including the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Belgium, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Lille, Montpellier, Nice and Armenia, Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, Novaya Rossiya State Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Symphony Orchestras of Auvergne and Mulhouse, Sinfonia Varsovia under the baton of conductors such as Marin Alsop, Emmanuel Krivine, Edo de Waart, Alan Buribayev, Robert Trevino, Pavel Gerstein.

In recital, Rémi regularly appears in venues such as Zankel Hall, Louvre Auditorium, Salle Gaveau and he has recently made highly successful debuts at Carnegie Hall, Munich Gasteig and Philharmonie de Paris. He frequently participates in festivals such as Verbier, Colmar, La Roque-d’Anthéron, Radio France-Montpellier, Gstaad Sommets Musicaux, Piano aux Jacobins, Piano à Lyon, La Folle Journée de Nantes, La Grange de Meslay, Interlaken Classics, St. Petersburg Arts Square International Winter, and Montreal Bach Festival.

In 2017/2018 Rémi Geniet made his concerto debut with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Saint Louis Symphony, his recital debuts in Romania, in Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan and Taiwan’s Kaohsiung, and he completed his second USA tour.
Notable debuts in the 2018/19 season include Chopin Piano Concerto No.2 in Suntory Hall with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, recitals in Izumi Hall in Osaka and at the Saitama Arts Center, in China with the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, his debut recital at the Konzerthaus Berlin, concerts at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Franck’s Symphonic Variations with the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Grieg Piano Concerto in Paris with the Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse.
Rémi Geniet studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris with Brigitte Engerer and at the École Normale de Musique de Paris with Rena Shereshevskaya. He subsequently studied with Evgeni Koroliov at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. He has also studied chamber music with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, orchestral conducting with George Pehlivanian and attended master-classes with Vera Gornostaeva, Tatyana Pikayzen, François-René Duchâble and Giovanni Bellucci.
His discography has been unanimously praised by the critics and it includes an all-Bach CD, which received a “Diapason d’ Or” in 2015, and a CD with Beethoven sonatas – both on the Mirare label.

Tickets:
€15 / €10 Concessions & members of the Pharos Arts Foundation,
Box Office: Directly from the Foundation’s website www.pharosartsfoundation.org/Tickets_online.htm or Tel. +35722663871 / (Monday - Friday 10:00am-3:00pm)