Internationally renowned Franco-American cellist and educator Jean-Michel Fonteneau has dedicated his life to empowering generations of musicians to be thought leaders, global citizens and ambassadors of music by teaching them the musical, personal and professional skills required to thrive in today’s ever-changing and unpredictable world.
Initially a physics major in college, Jean-Michel transformed his professional trajectory after hearing concerts at the 1976 Casals Festival in Prades, France, celebrating Pablo Casals’ 100th birthday. He never looked back and has since accomplished a rewarding international teaching and performing career.
After being a member of the Lyon Symphony Orchestra and Lyon Opera Orchestra, Jean-Michel formed Le Quatuor Ravel which became an award-wining string quartet giving world tours with annual performances at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salles Gaveau in France, and Suntory Hall in Japan. The quartet was awarded prizes at the Evian International String Quartet Competition and the French Victoire de la Musique Classique.
Jean-Michel was directly responsible for creating the first-ever string quartet residency program in France. There he built a non-profit for the ensemble that earned annual salaries and job security for the quartet members while building loyal and consistent audiences as well as communities new to classical music.
He joined the chamber music faculty at the Lyon Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, where he created a unique curriculum for first year chamber music students focused on the foundational and essential skills of chamber music playing and career building. During that time, his students formed lasting ensembles that have gone on to win prizes at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition among others, build teaching residences and develop recording contracts.
In 1999, Jean-Michel left France to join the cello and chamber music faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Since then, he has built a strong cello studio and further developed the cello department with monthly departmental recitals, cello ensemble concerts, and collaborations with the composition, early music and collaborative piano departments. Mentoring students throughout the school, he has sponsored projects that range from the study of instrument making to creating concert series, collaboration with neuroscience, and orchestral audition preparation.
While chair of the chamber music program at SFCM, he advanced the curriculum and training for the chamber music majors by creating a concert series where the students learned all aspects of concert production, audience development and professional performance.
Jean-Michel is the most in-demand cello teacher for the SFCM Pre-College Division. Students have been consistently featured as guests on the show From the Top, have won prizes at the ASTA and Stulberg competitions, and becoming Presidential Scholars and Jack Kent Cooke Scholars.
His students have been accepted to top music schools including the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Kronberg Academy and Rice University. They have appeared at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, the Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, and at summer festivals including Yellow Barn, Verbier Festival and Tanglewood. Former students have not only become professional performers but professional conductors, composers and educators at the collegiate and public school level, making state-wide and national impact.
Since moving to the United States, Jean-Michel has collaborated and performed with renowned performers including Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Bonnie Hampton, Nobuko Imai, Gilbert Kalish, Kim Kashkashian, Joel Krosnick, Robert Mann, Anthony Marwood, Menahem Pressler, Mark Steinberg, and Donald Weilerstein among others. He has also been featured in concert with long-established ensembles including the Danel, Escher, Fine Arts, Pro Arte, and Tokyo Quartets, as well as Martin Lovett of the Amadeus Quartet. He has recorded extensively for Albany Records, MSR Classics, Centaur Records, and Musidisc-France.
Jean-Michel is invited regularly to give masterclasses throughout North America including at the New England Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music and Rice University. He has been a faculty member at Yellow Barn since 2000, where he also serves on the board. He performs annually with the Houston-based Music in Context ensemble dedicated to historically informed performance on period instruments.
Jean-Michel studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Musique de Paris and plays cellos made by Eugenio Degani in 1893 and Andrew Carruthers in 2016.
He currently lives in New Haven, CT with his wife Dana and their cat Barley.
What is your hometown?
Chartres, France
What are you passionate about outside of music?
Physics and research in physics. Dynamic interrelation between mind and body.
Who were your major teachers?
Dimitry Markevitch, Mark Drobinsky, and Martin Lovett (Amadeus Quartet).
What is a favorite quote that you repeatedly tell students?
“The journey to reach your goals is how you truly discover your unique voice as an artist and how you grow as individuals.”
What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?
The 1976 Prades Summer Festival in the Pyrenees, France.
What was a turning point in your career?
1989: My quartet, "Le Quatuor Ravel", won two major prizes at the Evian International String Quartet Competition and attained national and international recognition.
If you weren't a musician or teacher, what do you think you would be doing now?
Research in fundamental physics.
If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?
J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and Henri Dutilleux.
From a music history perspective, what year and city are most important to you?
Paris, 1889 to 1930.
What are your most important collaborations?
Concerts and masterclasses with Martin Lovett and Norbert Brainin (members of the Amadeus Quartet); Multiple concerts at SFCM with Robert Mann, violinist and founder of the Juilliard Quartet; Ongoing musical collaborations since 2000 with faculty and students of the Yellow Barn Music Festival in Vermont.
What recordings can we hear you on?
Heartstrings, Albany Records
Solos & Duos, Albany Records
Tribute to Chou Wen-Chung, Albany Records
Autour de Messiaen, MSR Classics
String quartets by Ravel and Chausson
Strings quartets by Debussy, Dutilleux and Fauré - Victoire de la Musique Classique 1994, Musidisc-France
André Caplet - Hanna Schaer, Isabelle Moretti, Quatuor Ravel, Bernard Tétu – Le Miroir De Jésus - Inscriptions Champêtres, Universal Classics
Date: June 10, 2018
Author: Jessica Courtier
Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society has always cultivated a playful attitude toward classical music, so it’s fitting that they’ve chosen “Toy Stories” as a theme of their 27th chamber music festival.
Now running through June 24, the festival consists of six programs, each performed twice and each clustering music together under titles like Teddy Talks, Play-Doh and Transformers.
American Girls, part of weekend one, features music composed by women born in or residing in the U.S. (Plus a Haydn piano trio which was delightful, if only tangentially connected to the theme).
Yura Lee was joined by Jean-Michel Fonteneau (cello) and BDDS co-founder Jeffrey Sykes (piano) for two piano trios: Haydn’s Piano Trio and C Major, and a 1921 one by Rebecca Clarke called, simply, Piano Trio. Composed over 120 years apart, the two obviously sounded quite different. And yet both were lovely reminders of chamber music as conversation: the exchange of musical materials between instruments and the pleasure of seeing how closely musicians watch and cue off of one another.
Date: February 4, 2013
Author: Ken Iisaka
At the Conservatory on Monday, before the performance began, cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau announced that the players were using gut strings that were typical in the 19th century. In addition, instead of the forceful modern bowing technique for projection, they would use an older bowing technique that produces lighter pressure on the strings.
From the first measure of the Mendelssohn quintet, the warmth and the depth of the sound, quite different from the modern timbre, were evident. With the strings under a great deal less tension than modern strings, instruments can vibrate more freely, Fonteneau explained later, producing a warmer, more resonant sound. In addition, colors of the five instruments on stage were more cohesive, blending those instruments and performers into a more uniform voice.
The cohesive sound was most evident in the first measure of the second movement, Intermezzo. It opens in unison, but it then blossoms into a beautiful harmony as each of the five instruments acquired its respective voice. It made for a magical moment.
Email: jeanmichel.fonteneau@gmail.com
Phone: (415) 385-2097
