Augustin Dumay

International critics compare Augustin Dumay to the great violinists of the 20th century, and emphasize his special place as a "great classical-stylist", confirmed by his essential recordings for Deutsche Grammophon: the complete Beethoven sonatas with Maria João Pires " surely to be rankedalongside Grumiaux-Haskil, Menuhin-Kempff, or Perlman-Ashkenazy" (International Piano), the Brahms trios where "thelegacy of Milstein in Dumay's playing is admirably evident" (Gramophone), or the Mozart concertos with the Camerata Salzburg, "withoutexaggeration,one of the most beautiful recordings of Mozart's violin concertos evermade" (Classic CD), where he "confirms thathe is a marvellousMozartinterpreter, as were Stern or Grumiaux in the past" (Classica).

Augustin Dumay was first discovered by the public thanks to his meeting with Herbert von Karajan, his concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and his recordings for EMI (concertos by Felix Mendelssohn, Piotr Llitch Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edouard Lalo). Since then, he has performed regularly with the world's finest orchestras - Berliner Philharmoniker, National de France, Japan Philharmonic, English Chamber, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, Suisse Romande, Mahler Chamber, Bayerischer Rundfunk, among others - under the direction of today's greatest conductors such as Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Seiji Ozawa, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Daniel Harding, Armin Jordan, Kurt Masur, Eliahu Inbal, Emmanuel Krivine, Rafael Kubelík, Igor Markevitch, Charles Dutoit, Iván Fischer, Frans Brüggen, Kent Nagano, Kurt Sanderling, Evgeny Svetlanov, Alan Gilbert, Dennis Russell Davies, Andrew Davis, Stéphane Denève, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Yuri Temirkanov, David Zinman, Alain Altinoglu or Robin Ticciati.

In parallel to his career as a violinist, he has developed an intense activity as a conductor over the last ten years. He is regularly invited to conduct orchestras such as the English Chamber Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the Sinfonia Varsovia. Since 2003, he has been Music Director of the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia and in 2011 he was appointed Music Director of the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra (Osaka, Japan). In 2015, under his direction, a European tour took the KPO for the first time to Germany (Tonhalle Düsseldorf and Mozartfest Würzburg), Switzerland and Italy.

Since 2004, Augustin Dumay has been Master in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel (Brussels), where he teaches a number of young violinists of the highest level, most of whom have won major international competitions.

His discography - some forty recordings, most of which have won prestigious awards (Gramophone Awards, Audiophile Audition, Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Grand Prix du Disque, The Record Academy Award) - is available from Warner, Deutsche Grammophon and Onyx Classics.

For Onyx, he has recorded two discs with the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra, and, with pianist Louis Lortie, the albums "Franck & Strauss Violin Sonatas".

An album released in May 2015, features three aspects of his life as a musician - soloist, conductor and chamber musician - with Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 8, as well as Brahms' String Sextet No. 1. His next recording will be of Béla Bartók's Concerto No. 2 with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. It is with Maria Joao Pires and Emmanuel Krivine that he sponsored the creation of the Easter Festival and has always remained faithfully attached to it.