– Henri Dutilleux
A radiant and generous personality, Emmanuelle Bertrand is recognised as a leading figure in European cello playing. Trained at the Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs de Musique et de Danse in Lyon and Paris in the classes of Jean Deplace and Philippe Muller, and winner of numerous international awards and competitions, she was notably voted ‘Artist of the Year’ in France by Diapason magazine and France Musique listeners (2011), and three times winner of the Diapason d’Or award for her recordings released by Harmonia Mundi. In 2017 the Academy of Fine Arts awarded her the prestigious Simone and Cino Del Duca Interpretation Prize. She has received two Victoires de la Musique awards, ‘instrumental revelation’ in 2002, then ‘instrumental soloist of the year’ in 2022.
When she was 25, she met the composer Henri Dutilleux who spoke of her as a “real revelation”. Since then, she has been the dedicatee of works by Nicolas Bacri, Thierry Escaich, Édith Canat de Chizy, Bernard Cavanna, Janez Matičič, David Lampel, Pascal Amoyel and Benoît Menut. She also gave the world premiere of Luciano Berio’s Chanson pour Pierre Boulez.
It was during this period that she formed a duo with pianist Pascal Amoyel, her partner in life and on stage, with whom she fervently champions both forgotten works and the great repertoire.
She performs regularly as a soloist, notably with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, the National Orchestra of Ukraine, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Busan Symphony Orchestra (Korea), the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Wuhan Symphony Orchestra (China), the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Orchestras of Ile de France, Lille and Lorraine, and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Strasbourg and Monte Carlo.
Passionate about the links between music and the word, she works in close collaboration with Laurent Terzieff on texts by Jean-Pierre Siméon. In 2005, she co-wrote and performed with Pascal Amoyel in Le Block 15 ou la Musique en résistance, directed by Jean Piat, based on the testimonies of musicians saved by music in the death camps. In 2011, she created Le violoncelle de guerre (The War Cello) in tribute to Maurice Maréchal and his cello, made a few steps from the trenches in 1915. She went on tour with this program until 2018 in turn with Didier Sandre, Christophe Malavoy, Francis Perrin, François Marthouret or Richard Bohringer. In 2020, Robin Renucci entrusted her with the role of Agafia in Oblomov by Gontcharov (Tréteaux de France), offering to link the roles of actress and musician.
She teaches chamber music and cello at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. In 2022, she became the first woman to be appointed professor of cello in the history of the institution, founded in 1795.
