“Respectful of the style, endowed with a fertile imagination, this deep and subtle interpreter, architect of sounds, delivers a vision where intelligence vies with spontaneity”.

Michel Le Naour – Cadences

François Dumont is a laureate of the most important international competitions: the Chopin Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Clara Haskil Competition, the Monte-Carlo Piano Masters. He was nominated at the Victoires de la Musique in the category ‘instrumental soloist’ and received the Prix de la Révélation de la Critique Musicale Française.

François Dumont was chosen by Leonard Slatkin to play and record the two Ravel concertos with the Orchestre National de Lyon, as part of their Ravel collection. The album, released by Naxos, received a warm welcome from the critics: “a very accurate vision of the two concertos; a perfect classical clarity in the Concerto in G… the Concerto for the left hand, powerful, even heartbreaking” wrote Jacques Bonnaure in Classica.

He has also performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National d’Île de France, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre National de Lorraine, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, the National Orchestra of Colombia, the Pasdeloup Orchestra, the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, the Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra with conductors such as Jesùs Lopez-Cobos, Mykola Diadiura, Roberto Fores-Veses, David Reiland, François-Xavier Roth, Aziz Shokhakimov, Alexander Sladkovsky, Antoni Wit.

Born in Lyon, he worked with Pascale Imbert, Chrystel Saussac and Hervé Billaut. At the age of fourteen, he enters the C.N.S.M.D. in Paris in the class of Bruno Rigutto. He studied at the International Academy of Como and the Lieven Piano Foundation with Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, William Grant Naboré, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, Andreas Staier and Fou Ts’ong.

François Dumont has performed in recital at the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse, the Roque d’Anthéron Festival, the Chopin Festival in Nohant, the Chaise-Dieu Festival, the Lisztomanias in Châteauroux, the Chopin Festival in Paris, the Radio-France Montpellier Festival, the Besançon Festival, Festival de l’Epau, Nuits Musicales d’Uzès, Nuits du Suquet in Cannes, Grands Concerts in Lyon, Festival Chopin in Geneva, Festival de la Vézère, Folles Journées de Nantes, Sociedad Filarmonica de Bilbao, Festival Música – Musika in Bilbao, Kennedy Center in Washington. He is regularly invited to China, Japan and South Korea. 

His solo discography includes the complete Mozart Sonatas on Anima Records, a Chopin disc and two Bach albums on Artalinna, a Wagner/Liszt album on Piano Classics, a double live album of the Chopin Competition, published by the National Chopin Institute in Warsaw and the complete piano works of Maurice Ravel on Piano Classics. He recorded a series of Mozart concertos for which the press appreciated “a cantabile and inspired playing at the service of a deep intelligence of detail”, “the total osmosis with the musicians”.

His recording of Chopin’s Nocturnes was also very well received by the critics: “In a very popular repertoire, that of Chopin’s Nocturnes, the pianist François Dumont joins the greatest. He gives a vision of rare coherence to this essential part of the composer’s music. His album devoted to Fauré’s Nocturnes, recorded on a 1922 Gaveau piano, received the highest award, “Supersonic”, from the Luxembourg magazine Pizzicato.

He plays chamber music with Sayaka Shoji, Marc Coppey, Laurent Korcia, Augustin Dumay and the Prazak Quartet. He has formed a duo with soprano Helen Kearns since 2003.

During the 2021-2022 season, he will perform with orchestra at the Philharmonie de Paris, in Poland, in Germany, and in recital in Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Kosovo, London and Paris (Salle Gaveau). His latest album, devoted to Chopin’s Ballades and Impromptus, was released in April 2022.

The next season will bring him to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, to the Cité de la Musique and the Musée d’Orsay, on tour in Japan and at the Musikverein in Vienna.