Likā Debargs (klavieres, Francija)

Sunday, March 9th 2025, 7.00 p.m.
Riga Latvian Society (Merkela Str. 13)

LUCAS DEBARGUE (piano, France)
new recital!

     Pianist Lucas Debargue quickly became the most talked about competitor at this year's International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, garnering praise for the emotional expression in his playing and his musical individuality and integrity.

The London Spectator called Debargue 'the real winner' of the competition, due to the Moscow Music Critics Association prize bestowed on the 4th prize recipient.

Debargue began piano studies at age 11 at the Compiegne Conservatory under Christine Muenier. He gave up formal studies at age 16, but always maintained an admiration for virtuoso repertoire. After three. . . years completing his Bachelor of Science at Paris 7 Diderot University, two of which spent famously not touching a piano, Debargue began studying at the Beauvais Conservatory under Philippe Tamborini. There he met his current professor Rena Shereshevskaya at the Rueil-Malmaison Conservatory and this encounter became decisive to him. They soon prepared for his entrance examinations at the National Superior Conservatory of Paris, where he was admitted with unanimous approval to study with Professor Jean-François Heisser and ultimately obtained his bachelor’s degree in piano performance in 2015. Seeing in Debargue a future as a great interpreter, Professor Shereshevskaya admitted him into her class at the Cortot School to prepare him for grand international competitions.

An introspective and insightful artist who draws inspiration across disciplines, in literature, painting, cinema and jazz, Debargue seeks to foster a deeper sense of musical appreciation among his audiences and develop personal interpretations of a carefully selected repertoire, including works by some lesser-known composers, like Nikolai Medtner, Samuel Maykapar and Nikolai Roslavets.

This season, Debargue opens the Pianosvope Festival in Beauvais, France, and performs the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra in Birmingham Symphony Hall, at Warsaw’s ‘Folles Journées’ Festival, the Südtirol Classic Festival in Italy and PyeongChang International Music Festival in Korea. He reprises the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia and Vasily Pentrenko, and plays the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Mariinsky Orchestra in Beijing and the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Fedoseyev.

Debargue is invited to give two recitals in the Grand and Small Halls of the Moscow House of Music, and the closing recital of the 2015 Stanislav Richter December Nights Festival at the Pushkin Museum. He also gives recitals in 2015-16 at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Paris’ Fondation Louis Vuitton, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes for the Festival del Centro Histórico, Moscow’s Rostropovich Festival and House of Music, and the Roque d’Anteron Festival in France.

Debargue continues to work with Rena Shereshevskaya at the Cortot School and in 2016 competes for the school’s prestigious Superior Concert Artist diploma and Cortot Prize. He makes his home in Paris.