Claire-Marie Le Guay

Claire-Marie Le Guay “structures her narrative through sweeping gestures, as if tracing the movements of an inner clock concealed beneath the eloquence of the music.” (Magazine Pianiste).

She has performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Philharmonie de Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and the Festival de La Roque d’Anthéron. Invited to perform in recitals, chamber music and concertos (Bayerischer Rundfunk, Kremerata Baltica, New Japan Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris), she has played notably under the baton of Daniel Barenboim and Louis Langrée, with whom she has recorded the concertos by Liszt, Ravel and Schulhoff. 

Her extensive repertoire includes contemporary music, particularly that of Thierry Escaich, who has dedicated several works to her and for whom she is one of his most faithful interpreters.

Claire-Marie Le Guay has taught at the CNSMD in Paris and at the Académie de musique française de l’École Normale-Alfred Cortot since 2001. A winner of the Victoires de la Musique, an Eisenhower Fellow in 2015, and Artistic Director of the Dinard Music Festival from 2018 to 2023, she collaborated with the Dijon Opera from 2012 to 2020 on outreach programmes for young audiences.

She has made some twenty recordings, including Schubert’s Wanderer with cellist François Salque, Voyage en Russie, Bach, Liszt and Les joies de l’âme for the Mirare label.

An artist-in-residence at the Théâtre du Chesnay since 2019, she is the author of three books: La Vie est plus belle en musique (2018), C’est la nuit qu’il est beau de croire à la lumière (2022) and Que la joie demeure, vivre avec Bach, co-written with Erik Orsenna and published by Albin Michel in spring 2026, alongside her album Bach, Écouter la lumière on the Mirare label.

March 2026