Claire-Marie Le Guay

Claire-Marie Le Guay “organizes her narrative through sweeping gestures, as if skimming the movements of an inner clock hidden beneath the eloquence of the song.” (Pianiste).

A soloist on the international scene and winner of the Victoires de la musique, Claire-Marie Le Guay has performed at New York's Carnegie Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, Tokyo's Suntory Hall, the Festival de La Roque d'Anthéron and Germany's Klavier-Festival Ruhr. Winner of several international competitions, she plays with the same commitment in recital, chamber music (with François Salque, Amaury Coeytaux, Magali Mosnier or the Modigliani Quartet, among others) or in concerto with numerous orchestras, such as the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich, Camerata Salzburg, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Kremerata Baltica, New Japan Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Staatskapelle Weimar, conducted by Daniel Barenboim and Louis Langrée, with whom she has recorded Concertos by LISZT, RAVEL and SCHULHOFF.

Her vast discography has been hailed by the critics; the English magazine Gramophone calls it a “masterly contribution”. DECCA has released three boxed sets of her recordings, featuring Haydn, Mozart, Liszt, Ravel, Gubaidulina and Escaich. 

With the release of her recording Joies de l'âme in 2021, Claire-Marie Le Guay has returned to LISZT, whose interpretation made her a household name at just 19 years of age. This is her fourth recording for the Mirare label, following Voyage en Russie, Bach, and Schubert Wanderer with François Salque. 
Her broad repertoire includes the music of her time (Thierry Escaich, of whom she is the dedicatee of several works and one of the most faithful interpreters, Sofia Goubaïdulina, of whom she has recorded piano pieces and the Introitus concerto with the Orchestre de chambre de Lausanne, as well as Guillaume Connesson, Henri Dutilleux and Bruno Mantovani).

Following her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris (CNSMDP), Claire-Marie Le Guay continued her training at the Lake Como Piano Foundation, of which she is a prizewinner, with such musical personalities as Dmitri Bashkirov, Alicia de Larrocha and Andreas Staier, as well as in Berlin with Daniel Barenboim.

Since 2001, Claire-Marie Le Guay has been teaching at the CNSMDP and the Académie de musique française de l'École normale-Alfred Cortot.

Eisenhower Fellow 2015, Artistic Director of the Dinard Music Festival from 2018 to 2023, she collaborated from 2012 to 2020 with the Opéra de Dijon for the development of young audiences.
Claire-Marie Le Guay has been in residence at the Théâtre du Chesnay since 2019. She is the author of two books: La Vie est plus belle en musique (2018) and C'est la nuit qu'il est beau de croire à la lumière (2022) with a preface by Erik Orsenna.

May 2025