Philippe Graffin

Philippe Graffin’s inquisitive mind has often taken us beyond the confines of the repertoire, reflected in his extensive discography, making headlines with its many rediscoveries and exciting premieres. Whether commissioning a new work, unearthing a hidden manuscript version of a familiar piece, rediscovering a forgotten violin concerto, or collaborating with artists from other fields, Graffin continues to passionately expand the repertoire.

2024 saw the release of Rêves, a unique project including the world premiere recording (for AVIE) of two concertos by Ysaÿe that Graffin was instrumental in resurrecting and that he performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Jean-Jacques Kantorow. 

Graduating from the Paris Conservatoire at 16, Philippe Graffin furthered his studies with Joseph Gingold at Indiana University, Bloomington, as well as with Miriam Fried and Philippe Hirschhorn in Holland. Upon hearing him play at the Kreisler competition in Austria, Yehudi Menuhin invited Graffin to make his debut recording under his baton with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Since then, Graffin has performed on over five continents - from the BBC Proms in London to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, in Tokyo and Johannesburg, with the St Petersburg Philharmonic and Gothenburg Symphony, and with some of the emblematic musical figures of our time.

In 2003, he replaced, at short notice, the soloist to perform Rodion Shchedrin’s Concerto Cantabile, with Mstislav Rostropovich conducting. This led to Shchedrin writing another Concerto for Graffin, Concerto Parlando.

Graffin has premiered works by composers such as Vytautas Barkauskas, Yves Prin, David Matthews, Peter Fribbins, Philippe Hersant, Nicola Campogrande and Marcelo Nisinman. In 2014, he gave the French premiere of Corigliano’s The Red Violin Concerto at the Salle Pleyel. Long before it became fashionable, Graffin rediscovered Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto, which he made the first recording of in South Africa, and subsequently performed at the BBC Proms. 

Philippe Graffin has since recorded many concertos by British composers, culminating with the Britten and Elgar concertos, the latter in its pre-Kreisler version which was hailed by critics. BBC Record Review (2022) chose it among their three favourite recordings ever made. Subsequently, he gave the centennial  performance of the Elgar at the Three Choirs Festival, with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington.

Graffin founded the Festival Consonances in St. Nazaire, which he directed for 25 years. He brought this festival to Wigmore Hall in London for a week-long event devoted to the influence of Ysaÿe, and to The Hague with the Residentie Orchestra. He also founded "Ysaÿe's Knokke" in 2017 in the Belgian seaside resort where the composer spent his summers. In 2019, Graffin created "Traces" in Brussels, a festival devoted to the promotion of neglected works, especially from composers whose lives were crushed during the Holocaust.

In a quest to bring his music to a broader audience, in 2014 Philippe Graffin created a special project mixing poetry and music around the actor Gerard Depardieu, for concerts at Flagey, Brussels which were broadcast on Belgian television and featured in a documentary. He also wrote a musical tale for children The Hidden Fairy for the actress Marie-Christine Barrault, which they performed together at Wigmore Hall.
 

Graffin is featured in several TV broadcasts including "Delius: Composer, Lover, Enigma" for the BBC, "À la recherche de la sonate de Vinteuil" for Arte, "Ysaÿe Is Not Dead" for RTBF 2019, and the recent "Ysaÿe’s Secret Concerto," available on YouTube. In 2018, he premiered, completed and published a 7th Ysaÿe Solo Sonata. This major discovery is featured on the album Fiddlers Blues, and in the 2020 film “Ysaÿe’s Secret Sonata”. 

Philippe Graffin has made four recordings of Chausson's Poeme, each in a different version: the first with Lord Menuhin conducting, then the premiere of an original manuscript arrangement for violin, string quartet and piano. Later, another version with orchestra with 14 original different bars never heard before, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vernon Handley, and lately for a film with the Karski String Quartet.

Graffin plays on a violin attributed to Domenico Busano, Venice, 1730. He teaches at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSM) and at Brussels's Royal Conservatory (KCB).