JULY 30 2019

Abdel Rahman El Bacha

Born in Beirut into a family of musicians, Abdel Rahman El Bacha began studying piano in 1967 with Zvart Sarkissian, a student of Marguerite Long and Jacques Février. At 10, he gives his first concert with orchestra. In 1973, Claudio Arrau predicted a great career and in 1974, France, the Soviet Union and England offered him a scholarship. He chooses France by cultural affinity and enters the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, in the class of Pierre Sancan, where he gets four First Prizes (piano, chamber music, harmony and counterpoint).

Since the brilliant revelation of his talent at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium at the age of 19 that he won unanimously, he has performed in the most prestigious concert halls in Europe and all around the world.

From the Salzburg Mozarteum to the Théâtre des ChampsElysées in Paris, from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw to the Herkulessaal in Munich, he plays with prestigious ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, the NHK Tokyo, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande … under the baton of important conductors. He has recently appeared at the Philharmonie de Paris, at La Cité de la Musique in Paris, at the Grand Théâtre de Provence, in the United States with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, at the Salle Bourgie in Montreal, at the Musashino Hall in Tokyo…

In 2011, he began collaborating with Mirare CD label by recording some Prokofiev’s solo piano works followed in 2013 by a new Beethoven’s Complete 32 Piano Sonatas warmly acclaimed by the international critic. In 2018 has been released, still for Mirare, the recording of his own compositions for solo piano, works now edited by Éditions Delatour.

Billy Eidi

Billy Eidi, a student in Beirut of Zafer Dabaghi then Laila Aouad, studied in Paris under Magda Tagliaferro, Jacques Coulaud and Jean Micault. He is currently a professor at the CRR in Paris and the Schola cantorum. Previously he taught at the Cnsm (Lyon) and the École Normale in Paris. He gives regular master-classes at the International Summer Academies in Nice and Nancy, as well as in Spain, China, Japan and South Korea.

Billy Eidi mainly champions the romantic repertoire music, and 20th century french repertoire. He gives with the composer and writer Guy Sacre lecture-recitals on literary and musical themes.
For his recordings of works for piano (Sauguet, Milhaud,
Poulenc, Satie, Scriabin, Séverac Hahn, Fauré and Sacre) and French song (Ravel, Debussy, Fauré, Roussel, Poulenc, Sacre, Honegger, Auric, Delage, Chausson) Billy Eidi has been awarded high distinctions, amongst which are the Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, the Nouvelle Académie du Disque Français, the BBC “Music Choice”… He was awarded le “Grand Prix ‘Gerald Moore’”, by the french “Académie du disque lyrique” after a new release of Sacre’s songs.
His most recent recording (Fauré’s 13 Barcarolles) has just been awarded “Choc de l’année” by the French CD magazine “Classica”.