Biography
« Sélim Mazaris’ playing, supreme and majestic, with a perfect mastery of science of acoustics, opens the doors of dreams ». Praised by the journalist Alain Lompech after a performance of Images by Debussy (Paris, Fondation Vuitton, June 2018), this young French pianist is already considered one of the best soloists of his generation. He was nominated at the “Victoires de la Musique Classique 2018”, in the category of young solo instrumentalists. Born in 1992 in Garenne-Colombes, Parisian suburbs, Sélim Mazari began playing piano at the age of 5 with one of his parent’s neighbours, a pupil of the great pianist Brigitte Engerer.
He made such prodigious progress that he was admitted in 2004 to the Conservatoire to study with Pierre Reach, at the age of only 11 years old. During the summer 2003, he took part in a music academy in Nice, where he meets Brigitte Engerer. He is so inspired and influenced by the virtuoso teacher that he chooses to continue his studies with her. He is unanimously admitted to her class at the Superior Conservatoire of Paris, where he improved under her tutelage until her premature death in 2012.
He continues his studies with Claire desert as well as Rena Shereshevskaya, Michel Dalberto and Jean-Claude Pennetier at the Academy in Villecroze. After graduating from the Conservatoire, he leaves France for London to pursue studies at the Royal College where he starts working with Dmitri Alexeev. He meets in London Avedis Kouyoumdjian, the renowned teacher and friend of Brigitte Engerer, pupils of Dieter Weber and Stanislav Neuhaus, who becomes his mentor and invites him to perfect his training at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Highlights of Sélim’s 20/21 season include debuts at Auditorium Radio France with the violonist Augustin Dumay and the Diotima Quartet, Piano à Lyon with the Modigliani Quartet, Aix-en-Provence with the Hermès Quartet, recitals at La Roque d’Anthéron, the Opera House in Toulon (as well as 4 hands with the russian pianist Adi Neuhaus), la Grange de Meslay, Radio-France/Montpellier, Chambord, Chopin à Bagatelle, Mougins, a violin recital tour with Raphaëlle Moreau, aso.
His first recording, Beethoven’s Variations (for MIRARE label), recorded in Lyon and produced by Piano à Lyon, has been released in January 2020 for the Folles Journées in Nantes, celebrating 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Brilliant chamber-music performer, he regularly plays alongside the pianist Michel Dalberto, the cellist Victor Julien-Lafferière, the violinist Raphaëlle Moreau, the Modigliani and Hermès Quartets, as well as the flautist Josephine Olech, (First Prize of the 2019 Nielsen Competition and principal flute of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra). He has also collaborated with cellists Yo-yo Ma and Henri Demarquette, and with the Artemis Quartet. After a recent CD “Impressions” of duets with the bassoonist Sophie Dervaux (Principal bassoon at the Vienna Philharmonic and at the Vienna State Opera Orchestra), released by Berlin Classics, he has recorded two Piano Concertos by Mozart (n°12 K.417 & n°14 K.449) with the Manheim Chamber Orchestra conducting by Paul Meyer, for the label MIRARE during the season 21/22.
Sélim has also been invited by Daniel Barenboim to take part to his last Masterclasses on the Sonatas by Beethoven at the Boulez Saal in Berlin, on the recommendation of Martha Argerich. His performance of the Piano Concerto n°21 by Mozart (with the Mozart Paris Orchestra at La Folle Journée in Nantes) has been broadcasted by ARTE.
