Hélène Grimaud, born in Aix-en-Provence on November 7, 1969, is a French pianist, also a writer and passionate about ethology. According to her statements, on her mother's side, she is said to be descended from Berber Jews settled in Corsica and, on her father's side, from Algerian Jews[1],[2]. Other sources[3] claim that Hélène Grimaud's paternal ancestors were originally from Trets, in Provence[note 1],[4].

Hélène Grimaud discovered music and the piano at the age of seven, with introductory music lessons from Marie-Françoise Tarrit. She convinced her parents to entrust her to Jacqueline Courtin, who prepared her for the Aix-en-Provence conservatory. At eleven, she was introduced to Pierre Barbizet, who took her as a student and with whom she continued her musical studies at the Marseille conservatory. Pierre Barbizet remained her reference, her "master".

At thirteen, she was unanimously accepted first at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Paris and entered Jacques Rouvier's class. Her classmates, two or three years older than her, included Marie-Josèphe Jude, Claire Désert, Éric Le Sage... At fourteen, she gave her first concert in Aix-en-Provence, with the conservatory orchestra, to play Chopin's Second Concerto[5].

At fifteen, Hélène Grimaud won the first prize in piano. The same year, she recorded Rachmaninoff's Sonata No. 2 and Études-Tableaux, which earned her the Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles-Cros. She continued for two years with third-cycle studies, during which she benefited from masterclasses by György Sándor and Leon Fleisher.

In 1987, Hélène Grimaud played her first concerts outside the conservatory[5]. She participated in the Midem in Cannes, at the La Roque-d'Anthéron piano festival, where she was noticed by Jorge Bolet. He told journalist Alain Lompech, who reported it in Le Monde: "Hélène Grimaud? I haven't encountered such an extraordinary talent in a long time". Followed her meetings with Jacques Thelen, who became her agent, René Martin, director of the La Roque-d'Anthéron Festival, and Pierre Vozlinsky, artistic director of the Orchestre de Paris, then her audition by Daniel Barenboim, conductor of the Orchestre de Paris, who invited her to give concerts with his orchestra.
Hélène Grimaud gave her first solo recital in Tokyo, then in Paris. In 1990, she played in Cleveland. After that, she undertook a long tour in the United States, from Washington to Florida, where she settled, passing through Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Baltimore, New York where she gave a first recital at the Metropolitan.

In 2003, she performed Arvo Pärt's Lamentate in London.

In 2004, she received an honorary Victoire at the Victoires de la musique classique.

In 2005, she won the prestigious ECHO Preis as Instrumental Soloist of the Year.

Among her chamber music partners are Martha Argerich, Dmitri Bashkirov, Gidon Kremer, Shlomo Mintz, Gil Shaham, Paul Meyer, Mischa Maisky, Truls Mørk, Christine Schäfer, Lisa Batiashvili, Thomas Quasthoff, Sol Gabetta, Gautier Capuçon, and Renaud Capuçon.

Hélène Grimaud performs with the greatest orchestras, including the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio-France, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Bamberg Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, under the direction of conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Myung-Whun Chung, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Michael Gielen, Paavo Järvi, Kurt Masur, Esa Pekka Salonen, Kurt Sanderling, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas, David Zinman, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

In 2024, she performs at the Rencontres musicales d'Évian[6].

Commitment

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In 1991, barely 21 years old, when she settled in Tallahassee, Florida, she met a lonely Vietnam veteran who was raising a wolf, which she inherited after the old man's death. She then became passionate about these animals, studied their customs and behaviors, and decided to create a foundation and a park dedicated to their study and rehabilitation. She earned a degree in ethology, essential to open such a center.

In the spring of 1997, she co-founded with photographer J. Henry Fair the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York: a private, non-profit organization aimed at studying and promoting wolf conservation. Hélène Grimaud thus became a correspondent for several scientific organizations and works for the reintroduction of the wolf into its natural habitat. That same year, she moved to settle in Westchester County, north of New York.

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