We are exceptionally pleased to introduce October’s Musician-of-the-Month, Saskia Lethiec. Winner of Ferras-Barbizet and Enesco international competitions in Bucharest, Saskia trained at the Geneva Conservatory (class of J. P Wallez), at the CNSMD in Paris (three advanced cycles, string quartet, soloist and sonata), and at the Hochschule de Cologne (class of Mihaela Martin).
She is the guest of various chamber formations and orchestras, performs in many festivals and concert halls, Festival des Arcs, Colmar, Flâneries musicales de Reims, Folles jours de Nantes and Tokyo, the Orangerie de Sceaux, the Hôtel des Invalides, Musée d'Orsay, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Tonhalle in Zurich, Philharmonie in Warsaw, Rodolphinum in Prague, Tonhalle in Zurich, Guadalajara Festival, and the Seoul National Art Center.
Saskia founded the Trio Hoboken with Jérôme Granjon in 2003, with whom they recorded several discs.
Their latest duet disc, "French Sonates" Fauré- Saint-Saëns -Franck was released by Cascavelle in September 2021, and was warmly welcomed by the press, 5 Classica stars.
They have co-directed the Erard Paris Festival since 2022 ,and are preparing a new recording with Vinciane Béranger and David Louwerse for 2023.
In 2017, Saskia founded the Lugha quartet with Michel Pozmanter, Raphaële Semezis and Maximilien Porché to give the complete quartets of Haydn and Mozart over seven years at the Temple de Montrouge and at the Eglise Réformée de la Rencontre in Paris. Since 2003 she has been co-director with François Salque of the Festival Musique d'Un Siècle which mainly programs works from the 20th and 21st centuries and invites composers such as Thierry Escaich, Krystof Maratka, Philippe Raynaud, Jean-Baptiste Robin, and Betsy Jolas.
Saskia holds the CA, she is a professor at the CRR of Versailles, and she has been invited to give master-classes in Asia as well as at academies such as Les Arcs and Belle-Ile.
Your Preferred Music?
We serve so many great composers that it is not easy to choose. I think I will still put J.S Bach first whether as a composer to listen to or to interpret. It was he and Haydn who gave me the impetus to become a musician.
Your Most Memorable Moment as a Musician?
One of my most vivid memories is a concert I gave with three Curtis musicians when I was a scholarship holder of the Ravinia Festival. We had played the quartet in G minor by J Brahms. It was a moment of particular intensity after having worked on this for several weeks together with great masters like Claude Franck or Miriam Fried.
Describe Your Dream Performance:
My dream performance was last September in the Erard room with my pianist Jérôme Granjon in the sonatas of Saint-Saëns and Franck.The room is beautiful, mythical with all its past filled with creations of the greatest French composers of the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.
We also have a festival in this room which will be born on October 15 and 16.