Duo Cernat-Huillet
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Presentation
“A couple of musicians who have learned how to merge their talents at the highest levels. … Musicians of great individualism, with charismatic personalities, who breathe together like a single entity.” This was how well-known American critic Donald Rosenberg (from the Plain Dealer in Cleveland) describes the Clara Cernat and Thierry Huillet duo.
After brilliant student careers at the highest levels in their respective countries (France and Romania) and after having won international prizes, the two musicians didn’t wait until the day they met to launch dazzling careers as well-known international soloists. Playing together extends and enriches their careers. First to hear them was the great violinist Tibor Varga, who immediately suggested that they play Ravel and Enesco in the great International Festival of Sion (Switzerland). That was in 1991. They very quickly earned unanimous and international renown with performers, the press, and audiences, by the feelings they create and perfectly convey, as if by osmosis, through the originality and purity of their performance, and through the very special soul of this duo.
With several CDs and numerous concerts in halls the world over already to their credit, Clara Cernat and Thierry Huillet have been able to find a loyal following that’s growing by the year, audiences that are sensitive to the art and spontaneity of this musical couple, who were married, appropriately, the day of a concert, of course! Their CD dedicated to the music of Georges Enesco has won a number of accolades in the press, including ones from Télérama, Classica, Le Monde’s music critics, Le Nouvel Observateeur, L’Evénement du Jeudi, etc) and from broadcast journalism, including those from France-Musique, France Inter, RTL, RFI, and radio roumaine. The same goes for their latest CD, dedicated to the music of Ernest Bloch (a Critics’ Choice of Piano, and recommended by Classica, Diapason, Le Monde de la Musique, and recognized as a major musical event by Télérama...
The Musicians
Clara Cernat
Selected as the brilliant Romanian violin school’s special representative, Clara Cernat is also a passionate violist. She made her presence felt among the young Romanian virtuosos at the age of 16, when she began to be invited to perform with all the symphony orchestras of her country. Her recordings for Romanian radio are included in the Phonothèque d’Or, a national sound archive.
While studying under Stefan Gheorghiu, she won highest honors in violin at the Bucharest Academy of Music. In 1994, she was selected among “Europe’s Eight Great Talents” in order to refine her abilities with grand masters such as Tibor Varga and Igor Ozim. Her talent has been acknowledged and validated by her success in several international competitions, including the J.S. Bach First Prize, in Paris, and First Prize in the International Competition for Violin held in Citta di Andria, in Italy.
Her combined passion for the violin and the viola, which she is devoted to, allows her to explore a vast repertoire that is rich and expressive. Her concert schedule has her going to numerous countries in the European Union and Asia, as well as the United States. Clara Cernat is a professor at the National Conservatory for the Toulouse region as well as at the Center for the Advanced Instruction of Music in Toulouse.
Thierry Huillet
Modeled after the 19th-century virtuosos Thierry Huillet, a complex musical personality, is a renowned pianist and contemporary composer. Having won first prize for piano, chamber music, and other disciplines at the Advanced National Conservatory of Paris, his talent was confirmed on the international stage at the age of 22 when he won the prestigious First Grand Prize in the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition for Piano, in Cleveland.
Solo and orchestral concerts and recitals the world over were soon to follow, including performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, RAI, OPPL, the Lille Phiharmonic, the National Orchestra of the Capitol, etc. . . . He has been the prizewinner in the most important international piano competitions, including Busoni in Italy, and the International Music Competition of Tokyo. He shares his passion for chamber music with, among others, Michel Portal, Clara Cernat and Alain Meunier. Thierry Huillet is also in a permanent duo that he formed with the Italian pianist Maurizio Baglini. Their first CD together is devoted to the complete works for two pianos of Sergey Rachmaninov.
As a composer, he has been commissioned to compose for numerous festivals and orchestras and his compositions are played in Europe and in Latin America. Thierry Huillet is regularly invited to give master classes and to serve as a panel judge in international piano competitions. He is professor at the National Conservatory for the Toulouse region and at the Center for Advanced Music Instruction of Toulouse.
In 2000, Thierry Huillet was chosen by the Council of Europe as performer of the official version of the European anthem.
The Program
1. Gabriel FAURE…………………..Sonata No. 1 in A major for Violin and Piano Op.13 Allegro molto - Andante – Allegro Vivo – Allegro quasi presto
2. Camille SAINT-SAËNS…………..Danse Macabre, version for violin and piano
3. Claude DEBUSSY………………...2 Preludes, passages from the second book of the Preludes, for piano only
4. Thierry HUILLET………………....A work for violin and piano
5. Maurice RAVEL…………………..Sonata for violin and piano Allegretto – Blues: moderato – Perpetuum mobile: Allegro
In the Press
I have to start with a rave for… a violin that weeps, a violin that trembles, a violin that shudders, which vibrates, a violin that prays, a violin that is all these at once, a violin that is wonderfully musical.
Alain Duault, Classic Hebdo, RTL
A rare elegance, an ease, and a charm that give you the impression that you’re in for a festive time.
Télérama
Clara Cernat is astounding on the violin... Scarcely does she play the first few notes of her repertoire than she’s off in a world she alone knows. Passionate, dynamic. She doesn’t play music as much as simply vibrates with it.
La République du Centre
The fine sensibility of Thierry Huillet gives these masterpieces an intensity and a dimension far from the ordinary.
Classica
Thierry Huillet’s playing reveals great intelligence, in which virtuosity becomes part of the interpretation of the work and is balanced between a concentrated power and the creation of the melody through great gentleness and sensitivity.
La Dépêche du Midi
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