His Classical Tahoe performances are a chamber music concert on Thursday, August 6 and an orchestral concert, The Classical Continuum, on Friday the 7th. In those concerts, he will be performing two of the classics for the harp, the Introduction and Allegro by Maurice Ravel and the Sacred and Profane Dances by Claude Debussy. 'As French harpists, we get fed this piece like in a baby bottle ,,, And so I think the first time I played the Dances, I must have been around fifteen years old, and the Ravel maybe sixteen or seventeen years old. But yes, so they're works that have been around in my life for a long time.'
'The fact is like my solo career started before my orchestra career,' says Ceysson.. 'What happened is in 2004 I won the first prize in the USA International Harp Competition, which is like our major competition worldwide. And then a few years later I won the Young Concert Artist Auditions in New York, which is also like a good career starter.'
Before long, he was performing frequently and establishing a career in Europe. 'And then I got my first orchestra job in the Paris Opera,' he continued. 'Fast forward ten years, I went to the Met in New York, and in five more years I went to L.A. with the L.A. Phil.'
Recently, Ceysson released a new recording of a work written specially for him, the Harp Concerto by Joe Hisaishi. Hisaishi is famous for writing the music for Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films. Ceysson says that, as soon as he won the audition to become harpist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, 'I won a commission for a new harp concerto … But I wanted to be from Joe Hisaishi.' After some further discussions, 'For me, the stars were aligning.' Hisaishi conducted the premiere of the new concerto, with Ceysson as soloist, in his first concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in 2024. The new recording came out on July 24.
Emmanuel Ceysson's concerts with Classical Tahoe are August 6 and 7. classicaltahoe.org for more.
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Support for Arts on the Airwaves comes from the Nevada Arts Council, a state agency that provides public funding and support to artists and organizations, that benefit Nevadans in cities and rural communities statewide. More at NVArtsCouncil.org.
