NEWS

Lucas Debargue is in Valais, Switzerland.

2 days ago

3 concerts left—Annecy (France), Mänttä (Finland), and La Roque d’Anthéron (France)—and from August 2nd until September 7th, I finally get to take a one-month vacation after two crazy concert seasons.

The last months have been filled with exciting discoveries and unprecedented challenges, but also with deep questioning about the dead ends of « classical music » when it’s treated as a monumental cultural cake. Does being a good soldier of the repertoire make oneself and the world better?

Eleven years after breaking through in this « classical » world, I have never needed as much creativity, spontaneity, and personal expression as I do today. A lot still remains to be unlocked and revealed ... But it’s good to get some rest before going at it even more strongly!

Thank you all for following, and lots of love from your humble servant, LD

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Lucas Debargue

1 week ago

On medici.tv Page Turner magazine - In Conversation by Dina Hasanova. 👇"As an interpreter, you also get transformed by the process. You don’t simply perform a piece, you are changed by it. I have no idea what Turangalîla will do to me, to my mind or my body. And I can’t tell you what it will do to the audience. That’s something that belongs only to the moment when it’s actually played."
Read here 👇👇https://pageturner.medici.tv/en/in-conversation-with-lucas-debargue-the-only-reason-i-practice-is-to-become-free
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Lucas Debargue

2 weeks ago

Sharing an interview made during my stay in Liepaja by Anete Ašmane-Vilsone for Latvian media. I hope Latvian language can easily be translated with the help of AI …
www.lsm.lv/raksts/kultura/muzika/13.07.2026-francu-pianists-lika-debargs-lielakajai-dalai-cilveku...
Photo from the concert with Liepaja Symphony Orchestra and maestro Guntis Kuzma.

“I think you just have to be more creative and speak in your own voice more, because that's what the audience wants. They want to see people on stage with their own voice.
Of course, there will always be an audience for this kind of stylistic perfection and this kind of gourmet music. There will always be such performers and an audience that likes it. But I don't think that's what we should defend and protect. I even more believe that in the current political and ecological, current state of the world, this kind of elite classical music cake is no longer necessary.“
„I'm working on a Beethoven project now, I'm going back to Beethoven. One of my favorite composers is Domenico Scarlatti. I never get tired of going back to him. My next concert program is Rachmaninov's Sonata No. 2. I'm also playing Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and composing my own piano music, which I include in my concerts.”
“I really enjoy playing chamber music. It's very important to me. I just played a concert with a trio. Sometimes it's a bit too much, because when you look at my schedule, it feels like I'm playing something different every concert, which is a bit challenging and sometimes even too challenging. But I also appreciate the fact that I'm playing so much different music, and it's very refreshing.”
“When I have free time, I also just read music from a page. I go back to music that I don't perform on stage, like Schumann and Brahms. I've never performed Brahms' solo piano works. I go back to it, just study it, it amazes me. I'm also really into the Russian composer with German roots, Nikolai Medtner. I absolutely adore his music! So it's hard to name just one or two and choose. I have to play a lot of different things at the same time.”
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Lucas Debargue

2 weeks ago

Applications are now open for the 2027 Leeds Competition!

I feel so excited to be part of the adventure on the jury, together with president Sir Stephen Hough, Piotr Anderszewski, Janina Fialkowska, Alexander Gavrylyuk, Orli Shaham, Yeol Eum Son, Kathryn Stott, and Errollyn Wallen.

As the new Artistic Director, Sir Stephen has made some important changes, with the aim of making this, before anything else, a great musical celebration. Among them: competitors are welcome up to the age of 35, and they are free to perform any repertoire they wish.

It's wonderful to see such a message being sent by a great institution to the musical world.

I often hear or read a quote attributed to Bartók: "Competitions are for horses." Well, I believe that this definition of a competition shouldn't even bother horses.
But there can be another definition: a competition that doesn't consist in competing against yourself or against others through the cult of performance, but rather in participating in a great event, where one competes for art, music, and humanist values. This is what needs to be encouraged in the end, rather than envy, bitterness, or the petty exhibition of technical and interpretative standards distinguishing "winners" from "losers", "professionals" from "amateurs". These segregations are deeply harmful to music-making because they have nothing to do with music itself: they are mostly projections of fantasies of order and authority, governed by arbitrary rules. They put art into boxes where "level", "skill", and "mastery" overshadow creativity, rather than remaining a necessary but quiet part of craftsmanship. Technique shouldn't need to scream its name in every musical bar to be acknowledged.

I am generally in favour of competitions because, in principle, they are wonderful platforms for the sharing of individual expression. Today, a young musician participating in a competition such as the Leeds can be heard by audiences around the world thanks to broadcasting. A competition can be a decisive moment in a musician's life, not because of the exceptional stress that comes with it, but because of the opportunity it gives to young musicians to express themselves with great visibility. Some musicians manage to be heard and invited by other means, but competitions remain a valuable path for those who are not already part of an established network, allowing their talent to be widely recognised.

A competition is also a challenge for the jury.
Listening to an interpretation, we all have our expectations, wishes, biases, and thoughts about how it should be. But I believe that music starts beyond that point, once one makes these criteria a little less loud in order to listen fully, without prejudice. Because when one projects one's expectations onto a live interpretation, one instantly steps out of the musical present.
I often remember how, despite the aesthetic circumspections of the jury presided over by Glazunov, Prokofiev was still proclaimed the winner of the Rubinstein Competition in Moscow with his own modernist First Piano Concerto.

Culture is not a pile of accumulated and restricted traditions. It is constantly in motion.
See you at Leeds, September 2027 !

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Lucas Debargue

4 weeks ago

#surprise #new #recording #trio @david.casbal @alex.castrobalbi ... Voir plusVoir moins

Lucas Debargue

1 month ago

#violin #piano #new #Music ... Voir plusVoir moins