Biography
“An enthusiastic musician with a multi-faceted personality, Henri Demarquette plays the cello as if setting a deep forest ablaze; not a single stroke of his bow leaves the listener indifferent because he awakens music’s subconscious” O. Bellamy (Le Monde de la Musique)
As a young, brilliant musician Henri Demarquette attended the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Paris at the age of thirteen and studied with Philippe Muller and Maurice Gendron. His talent was quickly noticed and he was unanimously awarded the Conservatoire’s first prize which lead him to work with Pierre Fournier and Paul Tortelier in Paris, and Janos Starker in Bloomington, USA.
Already familiar with the stage, Demarquette made his concert debut at seventeen in a recital at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. He caught the attention of Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who invited him to play Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with him in Prague and Paris.
His career then took an international turn and he was invited to perform across the world with some of the greatest French and international orchestras: most recently Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic, Weiner KammerOrchester, Ensemble Orchestral De Paris, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Sinfonia Varsovia, and Neue Philharmonie Westfalen. He also appeared with his favourite piano-partners Boris Berezovsky, Michel Dalberto, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Fabrizio Chiovetta and Jean-Frédéric Neuburger. In 2015 he co-founded a string quartet with Augustin Dumay, Svetlin Roussev, and Miguel da Silva.
Extremely creative and passionate, Henri Demarquette is involved in many parallel projects. In 2014 he performed in an eclectic programme with music from Bach to Galliano in a duet with the French accordionist Richard Galliano, and premiered Contrastes for accordion, cello and orchestra with Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie. That same year, together with L’Ensemble Vocal Sequenza 9.3., he created “Vocello”, an original ensemble for cello and a cappella choir conducted by Catherine Simonpietri.
Henri Demarquette teaches at Ecole Normale de Musique Cortot in Paris.
He plays a Goffredo Cappa cello dated 1700.
Discography
Concerts
Bientôt de nouvelles dates
Projects
The Paths of Fraternity – L. Van Beethoven
"In most artists, the masterpiece or masterpieces arrive without warning, at some point in their lives, by surprise, when they are not expected, or more. Rimbaud, very young, before the silence…
Vocello
The cello, "the instrument closest to the voice," is often said. Take this remark literally, or at least dig into it by placing commissions on today's composers.