Biography
Born in 1959 to a musical family, Raphaël Oleg enters the Conservatoire Superieur de Musique de Paris at the age of twelve to study with Gérard Jarry. He graduates in 1976 and continues his studies benefiting from the precious advices of Henryk Szeryng, Christian Ferras, Emmanuel Krivine, Jean-Jacques Kantorow. Fascinated by singing, he also attends master classes by Pierre Bernac in 1977 and Elisabeth Schwartzkopf in 1980. This will be of major influence and will shape his playing deeply for ever.Gold Medal winner at the Tchaikovsky Competition 1986 in Moscow, an award rarely given to non-Russians, he makes spectacular debut this same year at the Lucerne Festival, replacing at short notice Josef Suk with Vaclav Neumann and the Tcheque Philharmonic Orchestra.
Following these successes came invitations to perform with Lorin Maazel (Philadelphia Orchestra), Jeffrey Tate (London Symphony Orchestra), Riccardo Chailly (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra), Wolfgang Sawallisch (Munich Staatsoper), Armin Jordan (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris), Semyon Byshkov, Günther Herbig (Orchestre de Paris), Libor Pesek (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra), Yan-Pascal Tortelier (BBC Philharmonic), Tadaaki Otaka (BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Yomiuri Orchestra, NHK), Mark Wigglesworth (Dutch Youth Orchestra, Utrecht Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC NoW), Ronald Zollman (Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM à Mexico City).
He goes on tour in Italy and Switzerland (Orchestre National de France/Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Mariner/Academy of St-Martin in the Fields), United Kingdom (Evgueni Svetlanov/Swedish Radio Orchestra, Kazushi Ono/Tokyo Philharmonic), Germany (Paavo Berglund/Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Michel Plasson/Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse), Japan (Marek Janowsky/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio- France), Australia and New-Zealand with Libor Pesek, at the Salzburg Festival with the Warsaw Philharmonic/Kazimierz Kord…
A keen chamber music player, Raphaël Oleg has as regular partners Antonio Meneses, Barry Douglas, François Guye, Clemens Hagen, Christian Ivaldi, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Emmanuel Strosser, Artur Pizzaro, Jean-Claude Pennetier, Anton Kuerti, Gérard Wyss, Sonia Wieder-Atherton, François- Frédéric Guy, Jeremy Menuhin, Gary Hoffman, the Johannes quartet, the Sine Nomine quartet and the Manfred quartet. With Josephine Knight and Artur Pizarro he just formed a trio with a debut concert due at the Wigmore Hall next November. The event has already created a sensation as many proposals from major festivals in the UK have arrived.
Also very active in the contemporary music field he has premiered violin concertos by Michel Decoust, Renaud Gagneux, Serge Nigg (2nd Concerto), Philippe Racine (« Promenade » at the Lucerne Festival) and Ivo Malec whose “Ottava Alta” he just recorded for Timpani records (Diapason d’Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique). In February 2006, he will give the first performance of the viola concerto by Jinrich Feld in Prag (he plays on a viola he has made himself in the workshop of Jacques Fustier in Lyon…)
Since 1995, Raphaël Oleg teaches at the Musik Akademie of Basel and he has just been appointed Professor at the Universität der Kunste in Berlin.
In 1997, the Académie des Beaux Arts awarded Raphaël Oleg the Del Duca Price. He is also Chevalier des Arts et Lettres.

Shirly Laub, coordination

Bibliothèque Royale - KBR
Mont des Arts 28, 1000 Bruxelles

Active participants: student violinists/ as listeners: open to all students