About
Laurent Lefèvre studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. At the age of eighteen, he was awarded the Premiers Prix in bassoon and chamber music, and went on to win numerous international competitions, among them the Premier Grand Prix at the Concours International d’Exécution Musicale at Geneva. At the age of 22, Laurent Lefèvre was appointed fisrt bassoon solo in the orchestra of the Opera National of Paris, a post he still occupies today. He is also very active as a chamber musician, He has been invited to play at many international festivals. Laurent Lefèvre is currently in charge of the bassoon class at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris.
Laurent Lefèvre studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where in 1987 he obtained first prize in the bassoon and first prize in chamber music. Winner of numerous international competitions (first prize in the Concours International de Toulon (1988), first prize in an international competition organized by the International Double Reeds Society (1989), first grand prize of the Concours International de Geneve (1995)) he has been a bassoon soloist in the Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Paris since 1991.
At the same time he conducts a career as a chamber musician in the Ensemble à Vent Paris Bastille (Paris Bastille Wind Ensemble) and in the Quintette à vent Claude Debussy (Claude Debussy Wind Quintet) with which he was awarded the special jury prize at the Tokyo International Competition and second prize at the ARD International Competition in Munich (a year in which no first prize was awarded). He plays regularly as a soloist with prestigious orchestras (the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Buenos-Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Caracas, the Mozart Tokyo Players, the Orchestre d’Auvergne, Les Siècles, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris, etc.) under the direction of renowned conductors such as M-W Chung et Seiji Ozawa. He is frequently a guest musician at large festivals (Lucerne, Davos, la Roque d’Anthéron, la Folle Journée de Nantes, Tokyo and Bilbao, the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, etc.). He is often invited to be solo bassoon in the Chamber Orchestra of Europe as well as in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Passionate about teaching, he was a professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon from 1998 until 2008. Since 1998 he has been a professor at the CRR de Paris (the Paris Conservatory) and gives annual master classes in several Japanese cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto), in Caracas, Venezuela, and at McGill University in Montreal.
He has recorded the entirety of Poulenc’s chamber music with the pianist Alexandre Tharaud (Naxos label); Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet and his Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet with the Quintette Debussy; Mozart’s Serenades and Beethoven’s Octet (Harmonia Mundi); Richard Strauss’ DuetConcertino with clarinetist Jean-François Verdier; and the Three Quartets for Bassoon and String Trio by François Devienne (Harmonia Mundi).
In November 2010, he was chosen for the position of solo bassoon in the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, and in January 2011, he was selected as professor of German bassoon at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris.