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The Swiss pianist, Olivier Cavé, studied piano at Sion Conservatory and later at the Conservatory in Lausanne where he earned a Diplôme de Piano with honors and was the recipient of an accolade for excellence. He also participated in master-classes given by Maria Lilia Bertola in Milan and by Nelson Goerner in Geneva. 1995 brought him into the sphere of Maria Tipo, whose master-classes he attended at the Fiesole School of Music, followed by a two and a half year study under Aldo Ciccolini in Italy and France.
Olivier Cavé gave his first concert with the Camerata Lysy under the direction of Yehudi Menuhin in September of 1991. He has collaborated with artists such as Alexis Weissenberg, Menahem Pressler, Arie Vardi, Howard Griffiths, Tibor Varga, Barbara Hendricks and Isabelle Huppert, and performed as a soloist with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Galileo Galilei Orchestra of Fiesole, Zürcher Kammerorchester, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Kammerorchester Basel.
In June 2000, Olivier Cavé placed among the finalists of the Clara Schumann Competition in Düsseldorf. In 2002, he performed L.v. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 for an RAI radio broadcast as part of a special series featuring a comprehensive program of L.v. Beethoven’s concertos for piano and orchestra in honor of Maria Tipo’s 70th birthday. He was invited by La Scala in Milan for the reopening of the theater museum and library in 2003 where he performed Liszt’s opera transcriptions on a piano that once belonged to the composer.
Olivier Cavé’s first recording “Réflexions” was released by Deutsche Grammophon in May 2004; the CD features works by L.v. Beethoven, Schubert, Scarlatti and Schumann. His career took a new turn in September 2008 with the release of his first recording for Aeon, which features sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. Critics across Europe praised the Swiss pianist with Neapolitan roots for having returned to the source. Dedicated to Muzio Clementi, Cavé’s second recording is even more striking than his first. Released in the autumn of 2010, the CD was given a 5 Diapason rating, 4 Stars from Classica and the highest award from the Japanese magazine Geijutsu Records. This success also led to invitations to perform at prestigious locations throughout the world, such as the Teatro Olimpico in Rome, the Tonhalle in Zurich, and the Phillips Collection in Washington.
His tour along the American eastern seaboard, during which he presented a program entitled “Il Pianoforte Italiano” and gave master-classes at Duke and West Virginia Universities, was a great success and preceded his debut with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in February 2012 under the direction of Rinaldo Alessandrini, where the pianist was praised as a "model of refinement behind the keyboard". The performances drew wide attention from both public and press.
Early in August 2012, Olivier Cavé made a remarkable debut at La Roque d'Anthéron International Piano Festival in France. He released his third disc with Aeon in May 2013, dedicated solely to the music of J.S. Bach and entitled, “Nel gusto italiano - Concerti, Capriccio e Aria,” a program which the pianist interpreted in January 2013 at Venice's Teatro La Fenice and will bring to his debut at the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in August. |
