Hélène Mercier, piano

© Elias

Born in Montreal, Hélène Mercier starts her piano studies at the age of six and quickly wins re-cognition by getting first honours at the Quebec and Canadian Music Competitions in piano solo and piano-violin. She is also an award winner of the Prague International Chamber Music Competition.

At the age of fifteen, she enters Dieter Weber’s class at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. She later studies at the Juilliard School in New York with Sasha Gorodnitski, after having been awarded a scholarship subsequent to her admissions audition. She then goes to France where she studies under Pierre Sancan of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, and with Germaine Mounier at the Ecole Normale de Musique. She also works with Maria Curcio, Stanislav Neuhaus, and in chamber music, with Gidon Kremer and Henryk Szeryng .

Hélène Mercier participates frequently in prestigious festivals in France, among which those held in Aix-en-Provence, Menton, Colmar, Nohant, Evian, Reims, La Chaise-Dieu, Lille, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse and Radio-France in Montpellier. She is also heard at France-Musique, Radio Classique, France-Culture, Radio-Suisse-Romande, Radio-Canada and CBS in  USA. In Europe and in North America, she regularly performs as soloist and chamber music player : in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Salle Pleyel and the Salle Gaveau, in London at Wigmore Hall and the South Bank Centre, in Germany at the Konzerthaus of Berlin, at the Gewandhaus of Leipzig and the Dresden Music Festival, in Prague at the Rudolfinum, in Brussels at the salle Flagey and the Conservatory, in Italy at the Villa Medici, in Milan at the Teatro Dal Verme, at the Piccolo Teatro and the Conservatory, at the Music Academy of Sienna, in the Teatro Comunale of Ferrara, at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa,in Torino at the Lingotto Auditorium and the Teatro Regio, at the Echternach International Music Festival in Luxembourg, in Athens and Tessaloniki at the Megaron Hall....and elsewhere, in Geneva, Monte-Carlo, Madrid, Moscow, Warsaw, Sofia, Bergen,Finland, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver,Washington and New York. She is also invited to play with several different orchestras: amongst others,with the Prague Philharmonia,with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra,with the Brescia-Bergamo Festival Orchestra,with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic,with the Minnesota Orchestra,with the Forth Worth Symphony. In Paris, she performs under the direction of Zubin Mehta with the Israël Philharmonic Orchestra and under the direction of Kurt Masur at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. She also plays with the Russian National Orchestra and the National Philharmonic of Russia conducted by Vladimir Spivakov and in Canada with the orchestras of Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal under the direction of Charles Dutoit,Trevor Pinnock and Long Yu.In China,she performs in Shanghai with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra conducted by Long Yu.With the Orchestre de Paris, under the direction of Semyon Bychkov, she plays the Triple Concerto of Beethoven with Natalia Gutman and Salvatore Accardo.She records with the BBC Philharmonic under the direction of Edward Gardner and with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Neeme Jarvi and Sir Andrew Davis.

She performs with the violinist Vladimir Spivakov in Paris, Saint Petersburg, Montreal, at the Festival of Colmar and the Festival of Evian.

She performs with the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in Copenhagen and Paris.

In Japan, she plays with the New Japan Philharmonic under the direction of Seiji Ozawa.

At the request of the conductor Kurt Masur, she joins the Gewandhaus Quartet of Leipzig for a series of concerts. She also performs with the Leipzig Quartet, the Moscow Virtuosi soloists,with the violinists Renaud Capuçon,Olivier Charlier,Augustin Dumay,Ivry Gitlis, Laurent Korcia, Julian Rachlin and the cellists Gautier Capuçon,Henri Demarquette, Truls Mork and Kian Soltani. Her activities in chamber music flourish as well with the two pianos formation where she plays with different pianists :Boris Berezovsky,Frank Braley,Khatia Buniatishvili,Brigitte Engerer,Cyprien Katsaris,Louis Lortie,Bruno Rigutto.

With Louis Lortie, six recordings for Chandos featuring works from Ravel,Mozart,Schubert, Poulenc, Rachmaninov Saint Saens and Vaughan Williams have gathered the most outstanding reviews across the world. The prestigious London magazine Gramophone ranked them as among the « TOP SIX » in their Quarterly Retrospect and Editor's choice. The Penguin Guide awarded them the highest distinction: « The Rosette ».Their recording with the Vaughan Williams Concerto for two pianos received the « Diapason d’or ».Their last album released in 2022 is the first of a Debussy  integral of works for 2 pianos 4 hands.

With the violinist Vladimir Spivakov, she has recorded an album dedicated to Ernest Chausson, under the label “Capriccio”. This recording has collected a considerable success both by critics and public and it has received the “Choc” of “Le Monde de la Musique”.

With Cyprien Katsaris, she has recorded an album dedicated to Schumann and Brahms and one under the label Warner Classics featuring Brahms 16 Walzes and 21 Hungarian Dances.

With Alain Lefèvre, she released an album dedicated to the composer André Mathieu under the label Warner Classics.

Hélène Mercier is “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”.