Antoine Tamestit

Antoine Tamestit has achieved the rare distinction as a violist of playing at the highest level with orchestra and being in constant demand as a chamber musician and recitalist. He is recognised for his peerless technique and his profound, natural musicianship, and known too for the beauty of his sound with its rich, deep, burnished quality. Tamestit’s repertoire ranges from the Baroque (he has arranged and recorded Bach’s Cello Suites for Viola) to the contemporary and he has performed and recorded several world premieres.

Engagements in the 2015-16 season include the world premiere of a new concerto by Jörg Widmann written for Tamestit that will be performed with the Orchestre de Paris and Paavo Järvi, and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Daniel Harding. This season Tamestit will
also perform with the NDR Sinfonieorchester with Robin Ticciati, Czech Philharmoinic with Jiří Bělohlávek on tour, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich with Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and on tour with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and Jonathan Nott. As soloist, Antoine Tamestit has worked with the Vienna PO, London Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchestra, Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, RSO Stuttgart, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and with the several BBC symphony
orchestras. He made his Russian debut at the Stars of the White Nights festival in the 2014.

Tamestit plays in the string trio with Frank Peter Zimmermann and Christian Poltera with whom he has recorded Mozart Divertimento and Beethoven Trio Op.9 for Bis Records. In August 2015 Tamestit Trio Zimmermann returned to Edinburgh Festival, where they have previously enjoyed great success. This season Trio Zimmermann will
perform in Hamburg, Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Bonn, Amsterdam, Vienna and Munich.

Antoine Tamestit also performs in a trio with Jörg Widmann and Francesco Piemontesi and plays in chamber music with artists including Leonidas Kavakos, Gautier Capucon, Emmanuel Ax, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Emmanuel Pahud, Nicholas Angelich, the Ebene and the Hagen Quartets, Cédric Tiberghien, Martin Fröst and Shai Wosner.

Other chamber engagements in the 2015-16 season include a concert at the Berlin Philharmonie, concerts in Hamburg, Amsterdam and Zurich with the Hecker Quartet, and trio performances with Alina Ibragimova and Matthew Hunt in Amsterdam and London.

Antoine Tamestit’s distinguished discography includes Berlioz’s Harold en Italie, which was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev and released in 2015 by LSO Live. For Naïve he has recorded three of the Bach Suites, Hindemith solo and concertante works recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Paavo Järvi, and he previously recorded Harold in Italy with Marc Minkowski and Les Musicians du Louvre.

Other notable recordings include solo works by Bach and Ligeti (Naïve/Ambroisie), Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with Renaud Capuçon, Louis Langrée and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Virgin Classics) and the Schnittke Concerto with Warsaw Philharmonic and Kitajenko (Naïve/Ambroisie). Tamestit’s world premiere performances and recordings include George Benjamin’s Viola, Viola with Tabea Zimmermann for Nimbus Records, and the Concerto for Two Violas by Bruno Mantovani written for Tabea Zimmermann and himself. This was premiered with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the WDR Cologne. Olga Neuwirth wrote her concerto for Tamestit which he premiered in Vienna, Berlin, and Tokyo.

Antoine Tamestit is professor at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris. He plays on a viola made by Stradivarius in 1672, loaned by the Habisreutinger Foundation. Together with Nobuko Imai, Antoine Tamestit is co-artistic director of the Viola Space Festival in Tokyo, focusing on the development of viola repertoire and proposing education programmes. 

Born in Paris, Antoine Tamestit studied with Jesse Levine at Yale University and with Tabea Zimmermann. He was the recipient of several coveted prizes including the William Primrose Competition and the first prize at the Young Concert Artists (YCA) International Auditions, BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists Scheme, Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2009.