Eric Le Sage

Eric Le Sage is established as a famous representative of the French piano school, regularly boasted for his very subtle sound, his real sense of structure and poetic phrasing. Already when he was 20 years old, the Financial Times had described him as “an extremely cultivated disciple of the great French tradition of Schumann piano”. In 2010, die Zeit, praised his “ideal French piano aesthetics and clarity”

Eric is invited to perform as a soloist with orchestras at the highest level such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Saint-Louis Symphony Orchestra, Berlin’s Konzerthaus Orchester, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Bremer Philharmoniker, Dresden Philharmonie, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Münchner Kammer Orchester, Dresdner Philharmonie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with conductors like Edo de Waart, Stéphane Denève, Pablo Gonzalez, Fabien Gabel, Sir Jeffrey Tate, François Leleux, Alexander Liebreich, Kazuki Yamada, Alondra de la Parra, Lionel Bringuier, François Leleux, Michael Stern, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon, Sir Simon Rattle and Yannick Nézet-Seguin.

Eric has performed recitals and chamber music concerts in major venues across the world such as Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall, Carnegie Hall, Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, Paris Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Radio France, Cologne Philharmonie, Essen Philharmonie, Dresden Philharmonie, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Schwartzenberg’s Schubertiade, Salzburg Mozarteum, Ludwigsburg Festival, Prague’s Rudolfinium, Taipei National Concert Hall, Konzerthaus Vienna, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Dublin’s celebrity series, Edinburgh International Festival, Düsseldorf Tonhalle, la Roque d’Anthéron Festival, Potsdam Sanssouci, Brussels’ Bozar, Berlin’s Boulezsaal, Konzerthaus Berlin, Berlin Philharmonie.

Eric Le Sage released many albums, all of which were critically acclaimed and received multiple awards. Besides his world-famous Schumann cycle in 2010 that were awarded the very prestigious Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, other milestones include Francis Poulenc's complete chamber works with piano (BMG, 1998), Fauré¹s complete works for chamber music with piano, and Brahms complete chamber music works (B-Records, 2021).
Two magnificent albums were released in 2022: A Mozart album under the baton of his longtime stage partner François Leleux and the Gävle Symphony Orchestra on Alpha (concertos n° 17&24) and a solo album on Sony Classical featuring rare French repertoire from the beginning of the 20th century.
In the last few years Eric released Fauré’s complete Nocturnes on Alpha (2019) and Beethoven's last 3 Sonatas (2014).
Other recent chamber music recordings include collaborations with such artists as tenor Julian Pregardien for a Schumann album (2019) or Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Daishin Kashimoto, Aurélien Pascal and more for albums around repertoire from Vienna in the 1900s, and works by Nino Rota.

A true chamber music lover, Eric regularly plays with friends like Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Quatuor Ebène, François Leleux, Jean-Guihen Queyras, les Vents Français, François Salque, Lise Berthaud, Daishin Kashimoto, Claudio Bohorquez, Julian Prégardien, Sandrine Piau, Olivier Latry and many other musicians.

Born in Aix en Provence, Eric Le Sage was the winner of major international competitions such as Porto in 1985 and the Robert Schumann competition in Zwickau, in 1989. He was also a prize-winner at Leeds International competition the same year, which allowed him to perform under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.

Eric Le Sage is Professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany.