Biography

Pascal Rogé exemplifies the finest in French pianism. Born in Paris, he was a student of the Paris Conservatory and was also mentored by Julius Katchen and the great Nadia Boulanger. Winner of Georges Enesco Piano Competition and 1st Prize of Marguerite Long Piano competition, he became an exclusive Decca recording artist at the age of seventeen. His playing of Poulenc, Satie, Fauré, Saint-Saëns and especially Ravel, is characterized by its elegance, beauty and stylistically perfect phrasing.

Pascal Rogé has performed in almost every major concert hall in the world and with every major orchestra across the globe and has collaborated with the most distinguished conductors in history, including Lorin Maazel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Masur, Edo de Waart, Alan Gilbert, David Zinman, Marek Janowski, Sir Andrew Davis, Raymond Leppard and others.

One of the world’s most distinguished recording artists, Pascal Rogé has won many prestigious awards, including two Gramophone Awards, a Grand Prix du Disque and an Edison Award for his interpretations of the Ravel and Saint-Saens concerti along with the complete piano works of Ravel, Poulenc and Satie. 

Several years ago, Mr. Rogé began a new and ambitious recording project for Onyx called the Rogé Edition. With the Vienna Radio Symphony under Bertrand de Billy, he has recently recorded two CDs of both of the Ravel Piano Concerti and the Gershwin Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue. 

Since a number of years Pascal has enjoyed playing recitals for four-hands/two-pianos with his partner in life and in music Ami Rogé. Together, the have travelled the world appearing at prestigious festivals and concert halls and recorded several CDs dedicated to the Frenc 2 piano and 4 hands repertoire. In 2011 they have given the premiere of a newly commissioned Concerto for Two Pianos by the composer Matthew Hindson with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. 

Recently chairman of the Geneva Piano competition, Pascal Rogé is also dedicated to teaching and gives regular masterclasses in France, Japan, United States and United Kingdom.

Programmes

Repertoire 2016

Concertos

• Saint-Saëns - Nos. 2, 5
• Ravel - G Major, Left Hand
• Franck - Symphonic Variations *
• Poulenc - Solo Concerto *, Concerto for Two Pianos
  * to be combined in one programme

Solo programme proposal

Debussy - Suite Bergamasque
Ravel - Sonatine
Poulenc  - Les Soirées de Nazelles
Debussy - Preludes (Book 1)

Duo programme proposal: around Erik Satie 

Pascal Rogé, widely recognised as the world's leading Satie interpreter, would like to propose a specially devised programme featuring his music.

Pascal Rogé recorded a very wide variety of Erik Satie's music over his 25 years as a Decca artist, including the global phenomenon's Après la pluie and Piano Dreams - two compilations of Satie's solo piano repertoire which achieved classical chart-topping sales.

Erik Satie was born in 1866, the son of a French ship builder and his Scottish wife. Although Satie entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1879, he was quickly thrown out for his exceptional laziness.

He published his first work in 1887 and around this time worked as a pianist in a number of Montmartre cafes, meeting places of writers and painters as well as musicians. This experience helped shape the distinctive style for which Satie became famous and which influenced Ravel and Debussy. This is characterised by clarity, restraint and a particularly dreamlike purity which has made his music accessible far beyond a traditional classical audience.

The programme which includes solo and four hands/one piano with Ami Rogé, concentrates on Satie's association with the composers of Les Six, including Francis Poulenc and with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets russes, Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso, the artistic creators of the first surrealist ballet Parade.