Bruno Fontaine

Bruno Fontaine: Pianist, conductor, arranger and composer, Bruno Fontaine is a versatile artist. Born in Épinal, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM), where his teachers included Jean Hubeau and Pierre Sancan.

While pursuing his classical career, he worked with various artists including Johnny Hallyday (as musical director for his first concerts at Bercy), Mylène Farmer, Alain Chamfort, and more recently Jérôme Deschamps (composi¬tion of two symphonic suites, Hulophonies, inspired by music for the films of Jacques Tati and performed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002).

Bruno Fontaine has created arrangements for symphony orchestra for Les Rita Mitsouko, Barbara Hendricks, Misia, and Paolo Conte. His favourite jazz partners are Michel Portal, Richard Galliano, Mino Cinelu and Louis Sclavis. For many years he has worked as musical director on the shows of Ute Lemper, Lambert Wilson and Julia Migenes.

At the same time he continues to appear as a classical soloist and conductor. He plays regularly with the Con¬certs Lamoureux, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Orchestre de Cannes, the Orchestre de la Radio Suisse Romande, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, among others. As a chamber musician he plays with the Ysaÿe Quartet, Michel Portal, the cellists Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Ophélie Gaillard (with the latter he recorded Fauré's complete works for cello and piano for Ambroisie), the violinist Guillaume Sutre and the viola player Miguel Da Silva (with whom he recorded works by Max Bruch for TransArt Live).

In 1997 Bruno Fontaine was invited by film director Alain Resnais to put together the music for the film On connaît la chanson, which was nominated the following year for both the French Music Awards (Victoires) and the French Film Awards (Césars). Subsequently he provided new arrangements and original music for another Resnais film, Pas sur la bouche (2003). He also composed the music for Tangos volés (Eduardo de Gregorio), La vie ne me fait pas peur (Noémie Lvovsky), Ça ira mieux demain, C'est le bouquet and Cause toujours (all three Jeanne Labrune), and in 2009, Soeur Sourire (Stijn Coninx) and Cavaliers seuls (Delphine Gleize and Jean Rochefort).