# Lucas Debargue

Lucas Debargue (born 23 October 1990) is a French pianist and composer. He was awarded fourth prize at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition.

## Early life and education

Debargue was born in Paris, France, on 23 October 1990. Growing up in Compiègne, he took his first piano lessons at the local music school at the age of 10 with Christine Muenier. He stopped his piano studies at age 15, as he became more interested in literature. At 17, he relocated to Paris to study for a degree in Arts and Literature at Paris Diderot University, and stopped playing the piano altogether for three years.
In 2010, he was asked to play at the Fête de la Musique festival in Compiègne, and this marked his return to the keyboard. When he met with the celebrated piano teacher Rena Shereshevskaya, who invited him to study with her at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, he decided to become a professional musician and prepare for competitions, and graduated under her direction in 2016.

## Career

In 2015 Debargue was awarded fourth prize at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Special Prize of the Moscow Music Critics Association for the musician "whose incredible gift, artistic vision and creative freedom have impressed the critics as well as the audience".
After the performance, Debargue was invited to play solo recitals, concerto engagements, and chamber music concerts at concert halls including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, the Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall, the St Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, the Theatre des Champs Elysées, the Salle Gaveau, the Milan Conservatory, Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Prinzregententheater in Munich, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Konserthuset in Stockholm, and Carnegie Hall in New York.
He has collaborated with conductors including Valery Gergiev, Andrey Boreyko, Mikhail Pletnev, Vladimir Spivakov, Yutaka Sado, Tugan Sokhiev and musicians such as Gidon Kremer, Janine Jansen and Martin Fröst.
Debargue records for Sony Classical and was awarded the ECHO Klassik prize in 2017.
In 2017 a documentary directed by Martin Mirabel (Bel Air productions), Lucas Debargue : To Music, was released and selected for the FIPA in Biarritz in 2018.
In 2019 Gidon Kremer named Debargue a "Kremerata Baltica permanent guest".

## Compositions

* Concertino, for piano, string orchestra and drums (2017), premiered by the composer and Kremerata Baltica in Cesis (Latvia).
* Quatuor Symphonique, for piano quartet (2018), premiered in the Centre de Musique de Chambre de Paris by the composer and Eva Zavaro (violin), Adrien Boisseau (viola) and Jerome Pernoo (cello).
* Trio, for violin, cello and piano (2019), premiered in Théâtre des Champs-Elysées by the composer and David Castro-Balbi (violin) Alexandre Castro-Balbi (cello).

## Discography
### Solo recordings

| Release date | Album | Label |
| 8 April 2016 | Scarlatti, Chopin, Liszt, Ravel | Sony Classical |
| 23 September 2016 | Bach, Beethoven, Medtner | Sony Classical |
| 27 October 2017 | Schubert, Szymanowski | Sony Classical |
| 4 October 2019 | Scarlatti 52 Sonatas | Sony Classical |
| 8 March 2024 | Fauré: Complete Music for Solo Piano | Sony Classical |

### Chamber music

| Release date | Album | Partners | Label |
| 3 November 2017 | Messiaen : Quatuor pour la fin du temps | Martin Fröst, Janine Jansen, Torleif Thedéen | Sony Classical |