Emmanuel Pahud

The Swiss-and-French flautist Emmanuel Pahud is one of today’s most exciting and adventurous musicians. He has been hailed as the finest flautist of his generation, “admired for the purity and subtlety of his tonal colours, his imaginative phrasing and his command of a broad range of styles.” (Interlude, 27.01.2025). He was born on January 27^th, 1970 in Geneva. At the age of six, he began studying music in Rome, where his family was settled at the time. In 1990 he graduated with the Premier Prix from the Paris Conservatoire and continued his studies with Aurèle Nicolet. He won First Prize at the competitions in Duino (1988) and Kobe (1989), and in 1992, at the International Competition for Performers in Geneva, he received eight of the twelve special prizes. Between 1989 and 1992 he played principal flute in the Basel Radio Symphony Orchestra and in 1992 in the Munich Symphony Orchestra. At the age of 22, he joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Claudio Abbado as principal flutist, a position he still holds today. Emmanuel Pahud enjoys a successful international career as a soloist and chamber musician. He regularly performs at leading festivals in Europe, the USA and the Far East. He has appeared as soloist with many of the world's most prestigious orchestras, and has collaborated as soloist with conductors of the stature of Abbado, Antonini, Barenboim, Boulez, Fischer, Gergiev, Gardiner, Harding, Jarvi, Maazel, Nézet-Séguin, Orozco-Estrada, Perlman, Pinnock, Rattle, Rostropovich, Zinman, among others. The repertoire of Emmanuel Pahud is very rich and varied. He himself believes the future of interpretation (of music) will always be a blend of "tradition and novelty. It includes works by Antonio Vivaldi, Georg-Philipp Telemann, Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, César Franck, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, Astor Piazzolla, André Jolivet, Henri Dutilleux and Sofia Gubaidulina. A dedicated chamber musician, he regularly gives recitals with pianists Eric Le Sage, Paul Meier, Alessio Bax, Yefim Bronfman, Hélène Grimaud and Stephen Kovacevich, and also plays jazz with Jacky Terrasson. In 1993, together with Éric Le Sage and Paul Meyer, he founded the International Chamber Music Festival of Salon-de-Provence, which is still a unique chamber music festival today. He also continues to perform chamber music and to record with "Les Vents Français", one of the leading brass quintets, in which, in addition to himself, François Leleux, Paul Meyer, Gilbert Audin and Radovan Vlatković participate. Seeking to expand the repertoire for flute, he commissions new works for flute each year by composers such as Elliott Carter, Marc-André Dalbavie, Thierry Escaich, Toshio Hosokawa, Michael Jarrell, Philippe Manoury, Matthias Pintscher, Christian Rivet and Lucas. In 1996, Emmanuel Pahud signed an exclusive contract with EMI/Warner Classics, a collaboration that proved to be one of the most significant contributions to the recording of works for flute. All of his 24 albums to date have received unanimous critical acclaim and awards, including several Diapasons d'Or, Victoires de la Musique and Echo-Preis. Emmanuel Pahud has been awarded prestigious prizes: the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, the Victoire de la musique, the HonRAM of the Royal Academy of Music in London and the UNESCO Music Prize for his contribution to French music. He is honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Music. He is also a UNICEF Ambassador. Since 2017, Emmanuel Pahud has been the Honorary President of the National Association of French Flute. He is also the 2024 winner of the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize.