Raphaël Sévère
Musician
Raphaël began playing the clarinet at the age of eight at the Nantes Conservatory. At eleven he gave his first solo concert with the Peking Opera Orchestra and at twelve he won five international competitions, including the Tokyo competition, where he won first prize and four special prizes. At the age of fourteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris where he obtained, two years later, a Bachelor's degree with honors.
Raphaël has performed in various concert halls: Louvre auditorium, Bastille opera house, Salle Gaveau, Radio France auditorium, Opéra-Comique, Cité des Congrès in Nantes, Corum in Montpellier, Palais de la Musique in Strasbourg, "Nouveau Siècle" in Lille, Arsenal in Metz, Atheneum in Bucharest, Cultural Center in Macao, City Hall in Hong Kong, and International Forum in Tokyo. He has been invited to play as a soloist with the orchestras Sinfonia Varsovia, the Orchestre National d'Ile de France, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre de Cannes, the Orchestre de Bretagne, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice,
Revealed to the public at the 2010 Victoires de la musique classique when he was only fifteen years old, Raphaël Sévère appears today as the youngest representative of the French clarinet school. In 2013, he won the1st prize at the Young Concerts Artists Competition in New York, as well as eight special prizes, allowing him to perform at the Kennedy Center Hall in Washington and at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York.
He has given recitals at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Auditorium du Louvre, the KKL in Lucerne, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele, the French May in Hong Kong, the Périgord Noir Festival, the Colmar International Festival, the Menton Festival, the Grand Théâtre d'Aix-en-Provence, the Salle Gaveau, the Opéra Comique with Alain Altinoglu, Nora Gubisch, etc. at the Festival of Radio France and Montpellier, at the Escales Musicales d'Evian, at the Folles Journées de Nantes and in Japan. Radio France entrusted him with a "Carte Blanche" as part of the chamber music series and he played in Berlin for the ARTE program "Les Stars de demain" presented by Rolando Villazon.
His chamber music partners include Alain Altinoglu, Adam Laloum, Jérôme Ducros, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, Victor Julien-Laferrière, Isabelle Moretti, Nora Gubisch, Philippe Bernold, Deborah and Sarah Nemtanu, Olivier Charlier, Gérard Caussé, Gary Hoffman, Xavier Phillips, Henri Demarquette, Jérôme Pernoo, the Wanderer trio and the Spirits, the Pražák, Modigliani, Sine Nomine and Ebène quartets.
In 2014, he founded the Messiaen variable geometry ensemble with violinist David, Petrlik, cellist Volodia van Keulen and pianist Théo Fouchenneret with whom he is in residence at the Singer-Polignac Foundation.
His first CD "Recital de musique française" recorded live at the age of twelve has been distinguished by Diapason (4 diapasons), Classica Répertoire (discovery), Classique Info Disque (revelation). His second recording "Opus 2" received 5 diapasons.
Raphaël published in 2014 a disc dedicated to Brahms (sonatas and trio with clarinet), with pianist Adam Laloum and cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière (Mirare), which received a Diapason d'Or and a Télérama.
