Cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras maintains an exceptionally wide-ranging repertoire that extends from Baroque scores through present-day compositions and encompasses concertos, chamber works, and unaccompanied pieces. For a period he belonged to the Ensemble InterContemporain under the direction of avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, and he has given several significant world premieres.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on March 11, 1967, Queyras spent part of his childhood in Algeria during the years following the country’s independence from France after a violent war of liberation. His family later settled in France, where he began cello lessons. He pursued studies at the Musikhochschule Freiburg in Germany and the Mannes College of Music in New York, after which he came under Boulez’s influence and joined the celebrated contemporary-music ensemble. His recording career opened in 1994, a direct result of his connection to Boulez, with appearances on a Deutsche Grammophon album of various concertos by György Ligeti conducted by Boulez. The following release arrived in 1998 on the Harmonia Mundi label and contained Benjamin Britten’s Three Suites for Solo Violoncello. Queyras has frequently played unaccompanied cello music, among them the suites of J.S. Bach. His extensive discography appears on the BIS and Erato labels in addition to Harmonia Mundi, the imprint responsible for the largest share of his output; it ranges from mainstream works by Brahms, Elgar, and Dvořák to contemporary and Baroque repertoire.
Recipient of the 2002 City of Toronto Glenn Gould International Protégé Prize in music, Queyras secured major concerto engagements with orchestras around the world. One of the rare cellists equally at home on modern and period instruments, he regularly performs and records with the historically oriented Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. He is perhaps most widely recognized for his promotion of contemporary music, an activity that has encompassed world premieres of pieces by Ivan Fedele, Gilbert Amy at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and Bruno Mantovani, among others. He has likewise championed the music of Anton Webern, Luigi Dallapiccola, György Kurtág, and Ligeti. An avid chamber-music performer, Queyras collaborates with the Arcanto String Quartet, flutist Emmanuel Pahud, and pianist Alexander Melnikov.
In 2020 Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud issued Complices, a collection of concise transcriptions framed as short stories; that same year he joined violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Alexander Melnikov for a recording of Beethoven’s complete sonatas for violin or cello and piano. He continued active in the studio throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to accounts of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, Op. 56, and a soloists’ version of Strauss’ Don Quixote. In 2022 he and Melnikov released an album of cello sonatas by Chopin and Rachmaninov, and he also appeared on recordings of Brahms’ String Sextet and the contemporary chamber program Invisible Stream. Queyras teaches at the Musikhochschule Freiburg and serves as artistic director of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute Provence music festival.
