Jean Rondeau

Born in Paris on April 23, 1991, French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau's youth, virtuosity and enthusiasm have breathed new life into an instrument threatened with obsolescence and reserved for a certain musical elite. He discovered the harpsichord via the radio at the age of six, and studied with Blandine Verlet for ten years, then with Olivier Baumont, Blandine Rannou and Kenneth Weiss at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, where in 2013 he was awarded a prize for harpsichord and basso continuo, with congratulations from the jury. First prize winner at the Bruges Early Music Festival and second prize for contemporary interpretation at the Prague Harpsichord Competition (2012), Jean Rondeau also studied at London's Guildhall School, and in the same year received the EUBO Prize awarded by the European Union for young performers of early music. Also a member of the baroque ensemble Nevermind and the jazz quartet Note Forget, the harpsichordist opened his discography in 2015 with the album Bach: Imagine, acclaimed by the international press and awarded a Victoire de la musique in the "Revelation instrumental soloist" category. The musician, under contract with the Erato label, went on to record the collections Vertigo (works by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Pancrace Royer, 2016), Dynastie Bach (2017) and signed with flutist Anna Besson the themes for the soundtrack to the film Paula (2017) by German director Christian Schowchow. In 2018, he wins his first Diapason d'Or with the album Scarlatti: Sonatas, followed by the Baroque recitals Barricades (2020), Melancholy Grace (2021) and Bach: Goldberg Variations (2022). In 2023, his repertoire extends to Mozart, Beethoven and Debussy in the recital Gradus ad Parnassum, followed by the recording of Louis Couperin's complete works in ten volumes on the box set The Complete Works (2025), crowned by a new Diapason d'Or.