Transmission and support to talented young musicians is second nature to the famous French cellist Gautier Capuçon. In a time of a pandemic, which is hitting the community hard, this mission has become an obsession for him.
To the point that he has just announced Monday, January 3 the creation of a foundation in his name. His goal ? “Support the musical vocation of exceptional young artists in France and abroad during their studies and support them in the first steps of their career“, as he wrote on Twitter.
Chosen for their excellence and commitment, the young artists selected will be able to benefit from a scholarship, record an album with Warner Classics and be programmed as the opening act by renowned musicians. The first call for applications will be put online in the spring on the foundation’s website, hosted by the Fondation de France. Musicians, violinists, violists, cellists and pianists, aged 18 to 25, from a National Conservatory of Music or holders of a conservatory prize, may apply.
In normal times, it is already difficult to find first commitments after leaving the conservatory. But the pandemic has amplified the phenomenon, laments Gautier Capuçon in an interview published on Monday in The Parisian (reserved for subscribers). “The few concerts that these young people had found were canceled, like all the others. Now, there is a traffic jam at the level of the rooms and the organizers are playing it safe “, laments the star cellist. “The concerts go in priority to confirmed artists, who will undoubtedly fill a room a little more than a young person, even very talented, who is not known. We are not giving them a chance. It is extremely unfair.“
The goal he set for himself with his foundation is not surprising: it extends his long-standing commitment to supporting young artists. Gautier Capuçon, who has been part of the show’s jury since 2014 Wonders on France 2, has created and hosted masterclasses at the Louis Vuitton Foundation for seven years (four of these three or four-day sessions are scheduled this year until June 2022).
Called Classes d’Excellence de Cello, each year they offer coaching to six talented young cellists from around the world, selected by audition. Gautier Capuçon in person comes to advise them in their musical practice, but he also asks speakers to guide them more broadly in their career (organizing themselves on tour, relations with the press, stress management, etc.).
At the same time, the cellist developed an original idea with A summer in France, a free summer tour in small towns and villages where access to culture is more difficult: as in rock or pop, since last summer he has been playing young artists in the first part of his concerts in order to present them to the public and to professionals. While the third edition of this tour is scheduled for summer 2022, this opening act idea also figures prominently in his foundation’s program as he noticed, he said, “that it was an extraordinary opportunity for them“.
His foundation still only has a reduced budget, he admits in The Parisian. But he will go and get the funding himself, biting his teeth. “I’ll have to go to coal. I want to fight for these young people. I really believe in the project. It will be my mission to seek funding, patronage.“We take our hat off to him.