Claire-Marie Le Guay is established as a major soloist in Europe, Asia and America. In 2000, Daniel Barenboim personally invited her for a tour in the United-States with the Chicago Civic Orchestra, with concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Chicago Symphony Center.
In 2009, the artistic team of New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival was impressed by her Hadyn-Mozart CD series and invited her to perform recitals at the Lincoln Center for the Haydn year. The same year, she was invited to play Clara Schumann’s concerto at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall with the New Japan Philharmonic and immediately invited back by Christian Arming.
In 2009 and 2010, Claire-Marie Le Guay is artist in residency at Paris’ Théâtre de l’Athénée, which allows her to invite some of her favourite artists and to commission works to some of France’s leading young composers.
Claire-Marie has performed as a soloist with a great number of major orchestras throughout the world such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchester, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, The Orchestre Philharmonqiue du Luxembourg (Emmanuel Krivine), The Residentie Orkest in the Hague, the Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonie, the Kölner Kammerorchester, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, the Sao Paulo State Symphony, with conductors like Louis Langrée, Michel Plasson, Emmanuel Krivine, Uri Segal, …. In 2009, she will tour in Japan with the New Japan Philharmonic and Christian Arming.
She has performed or is to perform in leading international venues such as Salle Pleyel, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Geneva’s Victoria Hall, Luxembourg’s Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Herkulessaal, Suntory Hall, Festival de la Roque d’Anthéron, the BBC Wales Festival, the Klavier Festival Ruhr, the Montreux festival, New York’s Lincoln Center ...
Claire-Marie Le Guay has recorded fifteen records for Universal Accord including two with conductor Louis Langrée, which received international acclaim and awards, as did most of her previous recordings. 2006 was the beginning of a three-CD cycle dedicated to Mozart and Haydn.
A winner of several major International Competitions (Maria Canals International Competition in Barcelona, ARD Competition in Munich) , Claire-Marie worked with such masters as Dmitri Bashkirov, Alicia de Larrocha, Claude Frank, William Grant Nabore, et Andreas Staier.
Claire-Marie is attached to renewal in creation and performing contemporary works is part of her priorities. She was dedicated several works by successful French composer Thierry Escaich. She is a regular performer of Dutilleux, Carter, Gubaidulina, …Her passion for chamber music has led her to play regularly with Eric Le Sage, Augustin Dumay, Quatuor Ebène, the Mandelring Quartet, Gidon Kremer, …
October 2009
Press extracts:
“Her performances, clearly involved, were attractive, (;;;) in the second of Liszt’s “Two Legends,” “St. Francis de Paul Walking on the Waves” (1863), she conveyed real, pulsing life.” New York Times, August 2009
“French pianist Claire-Marie le Guay’s performance with Louis Langrée and the London Philharmonic was a darkly nostalgic affair that uncovered great emotional depths beneath the piece’s glittering surface. Le Guay appears to be a formidable pianist. Her tone was weighty, conferring moments of jaggedness upon the jazzy sparkle of the outer movements and hinting at undercurrents of tremendous passion beneath the flow of the central adagio. Sculpting each phrase with great finesse, she was never vacuously showy or flippant. Langrée conducted with edgy brilliance, and the LPO responded with playing of sleazy virtuosity” Tim Ashley- The Guardian May 2006
“Her playing shows true refinement, allowing the work to breathe with a sense of space, a true pulse and sparkling ornaments.... This beautiful artist naturally displays a-rare elegance and a temperament that are "classical" and gracefully expressed.” Le Monde de la Musique (“Choc” Monde de la Musique, May 2006)
”The intellectual reasoning is matched by the interpretation. In Haydn’-s Sonata Hob. XVI:2, CM le Guay shows a sense of construction reminiscent of that of a Richter, while so many pianists appear ridiculous in comparison with that master.” Repertoire (May 2006)
”She constructs grand structures of glass and steel when others only offer sugary daintiness These interpretations strike by their monumental grandeur and mineral purity redolent at times of the keyboard of an Arrau or a Benedetti Michelangeli” Repertoire (May 2006)
« Claire-Marie Le Guay’s dashing virtuosity has a touch of the young Argerich about it, and she communicates a marvellous sense of rhythmic life and the sheer joy of music-making.” International Piano March/ April 2006
