yannick rafalimanana, piano

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French pianist Yannick Rafalimanana has developed an international concert career as a recitalist and chamber musician. Recent performances have taken him to halls all over the world, including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Chamber Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, and the Jerusalem Music Center. He has made chamber music with countless artists, including the Borromeo String Quartet, Kim Kashkashian, Thomas Riebl, Andreas Reiner, Arnold Steinhardt, and Itzhak Perlman.

 

As a soloist, he has appeared with the Orchestre CNR de Lille, Orchestre Impromptu, the Ensemble Parisien, and the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra. He has worked under the batons of Péter Eötvös, Jean Deroyer, Thomoty Brock, Zolt Nagy, and John Heiss. Yannick regularly appears at a wide variety of summer festivals, including the Perlman Music Program, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Brussels Chamber Music Festival, and Krzyzowa-Musik Festival.

 

Yannick is the winner of numerous awards and prizes, including the Borromeo Quartet Guest Artist Award, the Bruxelles J-Musiciens Competition, the Brest Piano Competition, and the International Ravel Academy's Rotary-Lions Competition. As the first prize winner of the 2012 Tufts/New England Conservatory Soloist Competition, he made his U.S. concerto debut in Symphony Hall in Boston, playing the Schumann Concerto with the Boston Pops Orchestra and Keith Lockhart. 

 

Born in Lille, he began his musical studies at the Conservatory of Lille under the tutelage of Alain Raes. He later graduated from the Paris Conservatoire with first prizes in piano performance, chamber music, and collaborative piano performance. His teachers there included Bruno Rigutto, Michael Levinas, and Jean-Claude Pennetier. His chamber music and collaborative piano coaches included Francois Salque, Michel Moraguais, David Walter and Jean Koerner. Yannick then moved to Boston, where he obtained a graduate diploma from the New England Conservatory in piano performance and a master of music in chamber music as a student of Vivian Weilerstein. He lives in Berlin.