Duo Jean-Samuel Bez, violin and Jean-Luc Therrien, piano
Shortly after French violinist Jean-Samuel Bez and Canadian pianist Jean-Luc Therrien met at the Orford Music Festival in 2016, they formed their Duo J². Since then, they have toured regularly in Europe and North America. This is their second concert in Belgrade.
Program:
Alithéa Ripoll
Estuaire de venelles, for violin and piano
Eugénie Alécian
Colora me, for violin and piano
Alexandër Peçi
Energie Caléidoscopique
Gabriel Fauré
Sonata for violin and piano No. 1 in A major, Op. 13 (1875)
Allegro molto
Andante
Allegro vivo
Allegro quasi presto
Biographies:
Shortly after French violinist Jean-Samuel Bez and Canadian pianist Jean-Luc Therrien met at the Orford Music Festival in 2016, they formed their Duo J². Less than a year after they joined forces, they won the First Absolute Prize at the Luigi Zanuccoli International Competition (Italy). Since then, they have toured regularly in Europe (France, Austria, Italy) and North America. Bez and Therrien – who both studied in Austria’s greatest music schools – have built a repertoire with a special focus on the virtuosic sonatas of the 19th and 20th centuries including sonatas by George Enescu, Francis Poulenc, Robert Schumann and César Franck. They have also enjoyed working on a variety of smaller and lighter pieces including viennese classics by composers like Fritz Kreisler or lesser known pieces by francophone composers such as Lili Boulanger, Gustave Samazeuilh or André Mathieu.
More recently, the two musicians recorded their first CD during a residency at Le Delta in Namur (Belgium). The album, which includes a variety of Fantaisies for violin and piano by various composers, will be officially released before a Pan-European Tour in February and March 2022. It will also include a piece by the Franco-Armenian composer Eugénie Alécian, which they created last summer as part of the Festival international de musique de chambre en Poitou (France).
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The violinist Jean Samuel Bez is also a member of the Brussels based Trio Spilliaert, with whom he has recorded the complete set of trios by the composer Désiré Pâque (2021 , Cyprès Records). He is greatly involved in the field of contemporary creation and likes to get off the beaten track. Also at ease playing non-classical music, he has toured with the Icelandic group Arstidir. Winner of numerous international prizes and competitions, his teachers have included Igor Volochine, Guy Comentale, Véronique Bogaerts, and Michael Frischenschlager. He now gives more than 100 concerts per year throughout the world.
In addition to performing a varied repertoire, the pianist Jean-Luc Therrien has a particular interest in improvisation and the transcription of symphonic works for the piano. His first solo album, which includes Debussy’s1 st book of Préludes and his own transcription of Liszt’s Poème symphonique Les Préludes, was nominated in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’slist (CBC Music) “21 Best Classical Albums of 2021 “. Inspired by his studies with Denise Trudel, Cordelia Höfer-Teutsch, George Kern and Marietta Orlov, he has won numerous national and international competitions and received support from notable organisations including the Canadian Council for the Arts and the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec Foundation.