Olivia Gay
violoncelliste
Olivia Gay uses "the finesse of her bow to make the sound blossom" (Diapason), creating a "warm and rich sound" (Libération), both on her recordings and on stage. Performing works ranging from Bach to Camille Pépin, her repertoire covers the entire spectrum of works for cello, with a particular curiosity for works by contemporary composers.
With three recordings and a busy recital schedule, Olivia Gay is one of France's most prominent emerging cellists, with engagements in Europe and abroad, including recent concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence and the Salzburger Festspiel.
Dedicated to her love of forests, Olivia has teamed up with the ONF (Office national des forêts in France) to raise public awareness of forestry issues and help raise funds to combat the dramatic consequences of climate change on forests.
Released in September 2022 on OutHere Music's Fuga Libera label, her third album Whisper Me A Tree is entirely dedicated to forests, with a repertoire of past and present works inspired by them. This album is Olivia Gay's first commitment to the future of forests. She donated 60% of her royalties to the ONF- Agir pour la forêt fund, thereby contributing to the reforestation of a forest decimated by ink disease in Essonne.
Olivia Gay also created "Le Silence de la Forêt", an artistic initiative committed to the preservation of forests. She takes the classical concert and its audience into the forest for an immersive experience combining music and awareness of the threats facing this fragile ecosystem. In 2023, around twenty concerts were given throughout the French forests, giving rise to numerous television reports and interviews in the major national media.
In 2018, Olivia Gay explores her passion for interpreting contemporary music in her debut album, Horizon[s], with a recording of concertante works by Philippe Hersant, Pēteris Vasks and Thierry Maillard, alongside the Orchestre Pasdeloup.
Télérama commented: "On aime passionnément... voici un premier album qui ne manque pas d'audace", while Libération added: "un programme ambitieux et original". In her second album, Origine[s], Olivia Gay tackles another subject that captures her imagination: the traditional origins of the cello repertoire. By placing works by Schumann, Kodaly, Boulanger and Piazzola in the mirror with folk pieces directly related to the repertoire, the listener is taken on a fascinating journey.
France Musique commented: "This is how the learned and the popular come together in a highly successful programme".
She has collaborated in concert and on recordings with many talented musicians, including pianists Nelson Goerner, Jean-François Zygel, Vanessa Wagner, Laure Favre Kahn, Célia Oneto Ben Said, Celimène Daudet, Simon Ghraichy and accordionist Basha Slavinska, the Van Kuijk Quartet, violinist Renaud Capuçon, the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, the Orchestre des Jeunes du Centre, the Orchestre Pasdeloup, the La Folia chamber orchestra, the Jan Talich Orchestra Prague, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, the Orchestre national de Cannes.
Olivia Gay grew up near Mulhouse, where she began studying the cello at an early age. She continued her studies in Strasbourg and Paris under the tutelage of Marc Coppey, Paul Meyer, Éric Le Sage and the Quatuor Ysaye, before moving to Germany where she studied with J.G. Queyras at the Musikhochschule of Stuttgart and Freiburg and completed her studies at the Musikhochschule of Köln in the Soloist Class of Johannes Moser. She has won several competitions, including the Léopold Bellan International Competition (1st Prize), the A. Glazounov Competition (1st Prize), the Gerardmer International String Competition (1st Prize and Audience Prize) and the Padova Soloist International Competition, among others. Olivia Gay is also a laureate of the Cziffra Foundation and the Académie Maurice Ravel. In November 2023, she was named one of the 100 Women of Culture by the association of the same name, in the presence of the French Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot.
In January 2023, Olivia Gay was appointed Ambassador of the Office National des Forêts "Agir pour la forêt" endowment fund.
Olivia Gay plays a magnificent 1733 cello by D. Montagnana, on long-term loan from Beare's International Violin Society.
Olivia Gay will be writing about her commitment to forests in a book to be published in 2025 by Éditions Grasset.
Olivia Gay
The Silence of the Forest
a new series of concerts in the forest, from June to September 2024
In 2022, Olivia Gay created Le Silence de la forêt (The Silence of the Forest), a public initiative to preserve the forest.
In the summer of 2024, she will once again be taking the public on a tour of the forest that has inspired so many works of art. Accompanied on the piano by Célia Oneto Bensaid and Aurélien Pontier (alternating), they will perform works by Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvořák, Gabriel Fauré, Edvard Grieg, Camille Pépin...
As part of this summer series, Olivia Gay, as ambassador for the ONF-Agir pour la forêt endowment fund, is offering seven concerts open free of charge to the public in Forêts d'Exception®.
The Silence of the Forest
An artistic project and citizens' initiative to preserve forests
The concert programme 'The Silence of the Forest' refers to Dvořák's work of the same name, as well as to the sadness caused by the recent mega-fires in France. It's an artistic and civic initiative to save the forests, which not only involves organising a tour of classical music concerts in the forest with Olivia Gay accompanied by pianist Celia Oneto Bensaid and other artists sympathetic to the cause, but also the release of her previous album, the musical programme of which is made up of works inspired by nature and the forest in particular. The aim of this unique concept is to mobilise the general public, institutions and the media through a musical, cultural and civic event to raise awareness of the crucial issues involved in preserving the health of our forests.
Olivia Gay, ambassador for the ONF-Agir pour la forêt endowment fund
Last recording: Whisper Me A Tree
Label Fuga Libera, Outhere Music, 2022
Orchestre national de Cannes; musical director Benjamin Levy With Célia Oneto Bensaid, piano and Stéphane Catalanotti, organ
Olivia Gay shares her love of the forest in this recording, whose repertoire is made up of works from the past and the present, all of which have Nature as their source of inspiration. It includes works by Elgar, Fauré, Adams, Offenbach, Dvořák, Popper, Richter, Pépin, Vasks and Bosmans.
Martin Coulon
ROYAL ARTS VISIONS: Olivia Gay