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Renaud Capuçon is among France's top violinists, with a repertory that includes contemporary music as well as French and German standards. He is a major star of the Erato label's roster.

Capuçon was born in Chambéry in the French Alps on January 27, 1976. He began studies at the local conservatory at age four. His brother is cellist Gautier Capuçon, and the two have performed and recorded together, notably in the Brahms Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102. At 14, Renaud entered the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP), studying there with Gérard Poulet and Veda Reynolds, winning top prizes in chamber music and violin upon graduation. He went on to study with Isaac Stern and has played Stern's Guarneri del Gesù violin in performance. In 1996, he founded the Rencontres artistiques de Bel-Air festival in La Ravoire, near Chambéry, and headed it until 2010; in 2013, he established a new Easter festival in Aix-en-Provence. In 1997, Capuçon was named concertmaster of the European Youth Orchestra under conductor Claudio Abbado. He remained in the position for three years, by which time he had already launched his recording career on the Virgin Classics label with a 1999 recording of Schubert works for violin and piano.

In the early 2000s, Capuçon gained considerable celebrity as both a performer and recording artist. He often performs French music by the likes of Franck, Ravel, and Dutilleux, but he is also at home in German music from Beethoven to Brahms. Capuçon also performs works by Kodály, Halvorsen, Erwin Schulhoff, and more, as well as contemporary works such as the 2002 Sonata for violin and cello by Éric Tanguy and a 2015 violin concerto he commissioned from Wolfgang Rihm. Capuçon has performed with numerous major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony, and he is an enthusiastic chamber music player who has collaborated with pianists Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, and Hélène Grimaud, among others. He has recorded some 70 albums, mostly for the related Virgin Classics and Erato labels, including a complete cycle of Beethoven's violin sonatas with pianist Frank Braley. In 2021, Capuçon issued three new albums, one of Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, one of chamber works by contemporary composer Michael Jarrell, and one of Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa, on which he conducted the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. He returned with a pair of albums in 2022 and three more in 2023, the latter including a cycle of Mozart's violin concertos on the Deutsche Grammophon label, on which he again conducted the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. The year 2024 saw Capuçon issue the Erato album Les Choses de la Vie: Cinema II, his second album of film themes. ~ James Manheim

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was not only one of the greatest composers of the Classical period, but one of the greatest of all time. Surprisingly, he is not identified with radical formal or harmonic innovations, or with the profound kind of symbolism heard in some of Bach's works. Mozart's best music has a natural flow and irresistible charm, and can express humor, joy or sorrow with both conviction and mastery. His operas, especially his later efforts, are brilliant examples of high art, as are many of his piano concertos and later symphonies. Even his lesser compositions and juvenile works feature much attractive and often masterful music.

Mozart was the last of seven children, of whom five did not survive early childhood. By the age of three he was playing the clavichord, and at four he began writing short compositions. Young Wolfgang gave his first public performance at the age of five at Salzburg University, and in January 1762, he performed on harpsichord for the Elector of Bavaria. There are many astonishing accounts of the young Mozart's precocity and genius. At the age of seven, for instance, he picked up a violin at a musical gathering and sight-read the second part of a work with complete accuracy, despite his never having had a violin lesson.

In the years 1763-1766, Mozart, along with his father Leopold, a composer and musician, and sister Nannerl, also a musically talented child, toured London, Paris, and other parts of Europe, giving many successful concerts and performing before royalty. The Mozart family returned to Salzburg in November 1766. The following year young Wolfgang composed his first opera, Apollo et Hyacinthus. Keyboard concertos and other major works also came from his pen.

In 1769, Mozart was appointed Konzertmeister at the Salzburg Court by the Archbishop. Beginning that same year, the Mozarts made three tours of Italy, where the young composer studied Italian opera and produced two successful efforts, Mitridate and Lucio Silla. In 1773, Mozart was back in Austria, where he spent most of the next few years composing. He wrote all his violin concertos between 1774 and 1777, as well as Masses, symphonies, and chamber works.

In 1780, Mozart wrote his opera Idomeneo, which became a sensation in Munich. After a conflict with the Archbishop, Mozart left his Konzertmeister post and settled in Vienna. He received a number of commissions and took on a well-paying but unimportant Court post. In 1782 Mozart married Constanze Weber and took her to Salzburg the following year to introduce her to his family. 1782 was also the year that saw his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail staged with great success.

In 1784, Mozart joined the Freemasons, apparently embracing the teachings of that group. He would later write music for certain Masonic lodges. In the early and mid-1780s, Mozart composed many sonatas and quartets, and often appeared as soloist in the 15 piano concertos he wrote during this period. Many of his commissions were for operas now, and Mozart met them with a string of masterpieces. Le nozze di Figaro came 1786, Don Giovanni in 1787, Così fan tutte in 1790, and Die Zauberflöte in 1791. Mozart made a number of trips in his last years, and while his health had been fragile in previous times, he displayed no serious condition or illness until he developed a fever of unknown origin near the end of 1791. ~ Robert Cummings

Pianist and composer Kit Armstrong is unusual in that he is frequently active in both those activities. He is the owner of a former church in France where he presents concerts and, during the coronavirus pandemic, broadcast daily videos.

Armstrong was born in Los Angeles on March 5, 1992. As a child, he was oriented toward sciences, mathematics, and languages, but he also taught himself the fundamentals of composition by reading encyclopedia articles. He began taking piano and composition lessons as a child, but throughout his student years, he combined music studies with science and math courses. Armstrong attended Christian schools in the Los Angeles area, taking courses while in high school at California State University at Long Beach in physics and at Chapman University in Orange County in music composition. Armstrong studied biology, physics, mathematics as well as music at Utah State University and then entered the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of Pennsylvania at age 11. He moved to London in 2004, studying at the Royal Academy of Music and earning a bachelor's degree in 2008, and also taking mathematics classes at Imperial College, London. He earned a master's degree in science from Marie Curie University in Paris in 2012. Beginning in 2005, he studied privately with Alfred Brendel.

Armstrong made his debut at eight with the Long Beach Bach Festival Orchestra, and he has appeared as a concerto soloist with top orchestras in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Tokyo Symphony, and the Baltimore Symphony. He has given solo recitals across Europe and the U.S., including one at Carnegie Hall in 2003 that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Steinway & Sons company. Armstrong is also an avid chamber music player and vocal accompanist, working with such artists as the Szymanowski Quartet and singers Andreas Wolf, Thomas Bauer, and Christiane Karg. In the summer of 2018, he performed 24 concerts at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in Germany as the festival's prizewinner-in-residence. In 2012, Armstrong purchased the Church of Sainte-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jésus, Hirson, in France; he has given concerts from there, and during the coronavirus pandemic, presented daily video broadcasts.

Armstrong has composed a symphony, five piano concertos, solo piano music, and a variety of chamber music. His works have been performed by various first-rank ensembles, including the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, which premiered his fortepiano concerto in 2015. They are published by Edition Peters. Armstrong has recorded for the Genuin, Sony Classical, and Deutsche Grammophon labels; his debut on the latter was William Byrd, John Bull: Visionaries of Piano Music, which appeared in 2021. ~ James Manheim