R3 / Renaud Capuçon performing and conducting • Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

This time, French violinist Renaud Capuçon, older brother of the equally famous cellist Gautier Capuçon, will be in Prague not only as a soloist but also as a conductor. His prized instrument has long been a violin from the Guarneri family workshop, once played by Isaac Stern. A quarter of a century ago, Renaud began as concertmaster of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester under the baton of Claudio Abbado. Since then, he has grown into an international musical star. His most recent records include the album “Au Cinema” with arrangements of musical themes from the big screen and the CD “Un violin à Paris” with a series of arrangements for violin and piano. In recent years, he has also devoted more time to conducting, and since 2021 he has been the conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, with whom he has already recorded a CD dedicated to Arvo Pärt’s music. In Switzerland, he has also founded and directs the Festival Les Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad and is director of the Festival de Pâques d'Aix-en-Provence in southern France. Capuçon’s Prague programme includes two works by Gabriel Fauré, a pupil of Saint-Saëns and later Maurice Ravel’s teacher, assistant to Charles-Maria Widor at St Sulpice in Paris and then organist and choirmaster at the Madeleine church. These include an unfinished violin concerto and a suite from the music for the play Pelléas et Mélisande by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. The same theme was later explored by composers Jean Sibelius, Arnold Schoenberg and Claude Debussy. The programme concludes with Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s “Scottish” symphony.