A concert pianist, doctor of music and musicology, conductor and
composer, Christophe Alvarez is teaching at the National Academy of Music
"Gheorghe Dima" of Cluj (Romania) as Lecturer Tenure of Piano. He is also the Artistic Director of the SCENA International Festival.
He was born in France in 1987 and began his musical studies at the Nice
Conservatoire (France), where he was awarded the Prix de Piano, and diplomas in
Harmony, Sight reading and Chamber music. Later on, he became a student at the
prestigious Ecole Normale Alfred Cortot in Paris and graduated the Diplome
Professionnel de Piano in 2007. He is a prize winner in several international
piano competitions: Unesco (2002), Flame (2003), Rodolfo-Caporali (2007),
Brest-Chopin (2007), Simone-Delbert (2009). He benefited from the precious
artistic guidance of Andras Schiff, Christopher Elton, Christian Zacharias,
Kyoko Hashimoto, Sergio Perticaroli, Rena Shereshevskaya, Desire N’Kaoua,
Philippe Bianconi.
His career led him to play in many concert halls and festivals in North
America and in Europe such as: Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen, Warsaw
Philharmonic Hall, Salle Cortot in Paris, Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, Teatro del
Verme Milano, Filarmonica de Stadt Cluj, Filarmonica Dinu Lipatti, Filarmonica
Oltenia, Chapelle du Bon-Pasteur Montreal. He was the guest of renowned
festivals in France, Canada, Italy, Germany, Poland, Romania, such as the Jozef
Zeidler Festival, The Musical Chairs, les Nuits du Suquet de Cannes, the 60th
Festival de Musique de Menton, the 30th Festival Chopin w barwach jesieni, the
International Mozart Festival of Cluj, Piano HomeComing Montreal, The Musical
Chairs, Toamna Muzicala Cluj, the Printemps Musical de St Tropez and many more.
Christophe Alvarez has recorded a live CD of the two Chopin
piano concertos at the Chopin 1810-2010 Festival in Poland, under the baton of
Marcin Sompolinski. For Polish Radio label, he has also recorded a world
premiere CD of the complete piano music of Alfons Szczerbinski. He performed with several orchestras in Europe, such as the Transilvanian State Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Dinu Lipatti Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oltenia Philharmonic
Orchestra, Orkiestra Nova, The Beethoven Young Academy Orchestra, Orchestre
Philharmonique de Cannes PACA, the Young Famous Orchestra of Romania, The
Chamber Orchestra of Poznan. As a very active performer in chamber
music ensembles, his repertoire covers extensive works from early
music to XXth century.
He has recorded the reconstitution of the “Ballet du Temps” (1654) with
the ensemble "IntAct" he created in Montreal, made up of professional
early music performers. This project is part of his practice of baroque music,
at harpsichord as well as conducting ensembles. In 2008, he founded in Paris the
Ensemble Musica Tempora, made up of professional musicians playing on period
instruments. His ensemble performed works by Charpentier, Campra, Desmarets, and Lully. Christophe has a deep knowledge of continuo playing and extensive improvisation skills
through his experiences in early music spread over more than 10 years.
Christophe Alvarez completed academic studies in France and in Canada, from Bachelor to
Doctorate, at Universite Paris IV Sorbonne, at Universite de Nice and at McGill
University. In 2017, he was awarded the title of Doctor in Music at the end of
my Doctoral program at Université de Nice (France) and in 2020 the title of
Doctor in Music Performance from McGill University. His research has been
published in several scientific reviews in France, Italy, Romania, Canada
(OICRM, Studia Universitatis, Steaua, Eunomios, l’Education Musicale, Le
Cercle).
His professional teaching background includes two years as Graduate Assistant in applied Piano Performance and as Staff Accompanist at McGill University (2017-2019), three years as Course Lecturer at the Université de Nice (2013-2016), six years as Piano Teacher at the Ecole de Musique “Music 3000” teaching to pre-college and college level students (2009-2015), one year as Staff Accompanist at the Centre d’Art Lyrique de la Méditerrannée (2008-2009).
He has been sitting as a member of jury during the international
piano competitions Simone-Delbert (2010), Carl Filtsch (2016), Mozart Cluj
(2019) and Nice International Piano Competition (2022).
As a passionate of composition since his young age, he is the author of
three feature length films and many international short-movies soundtracks.
Some of these movies have been selected to Festival des Canaries (2014), Seoul
Movie Festival (2013) and Cannes Junior Festival (2013). In 2022, his piece
"Reculegere" for soprano and orchestra, comissioned by the Young
Famous Orchestra, was played in world-premiere. The catalogue consists of
several lieder for singer and piano, two orchestral poems, and a piano solo
triptych “Reflets” inspired by the three Sonnets of Mihai Eminescu (edited by
Arpeggione).
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