Augustin Dumay is among the most gifted violinists of his generation, described by a critic as the legitimate heir to the royal Belgian line of violinists, to Ysaÿe, Dubois and Grumiaux. He won international recognition in 1979, when Herbert von Karajan invited him to appear as a soloist in a gala concert in Paris with the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, followed by an immediate engagement with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Colin Davis to perform Bartók’s Second Concerto. His career continued with appearances with leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Warsaw Philharmonic, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has played with the most distinguished conductors including Sir Colin Davis, Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Sanderling, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Marc Minkowski, Emmanuel Krivine, and Kurt Masur.
As a recitalist he has appeared in the world’s best known halls, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Brussels Palais des Beaux- Arts, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall and at the Barbican in London, La Scala Milan, the Berlin Philharmonic, Victoria Hall in Geneva, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, the Tokyo Suntory Hall, and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. He has also appeared in numerous major festivals, among them those of Montreux, Bath, Berlin, Lucerne, Monaco, Aix-en-Provence, Leipzig, Montpellier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart in New York, Les Folles Journées de Nantes and the Amsterdam Robeco Series.
Since December 2003 Augustin Dumay has served as the principal conductor of the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie (ORCW), with which he has appeared as conductor and soloist throughout Europe. Other conducting engagements have brought collaboration with the Camerata Academica Salzburg, the Orchestre de Picardie, the Athens Kamerata, the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Orchestre d’Auvergne, and the English Chamber Orchestra. He was artistic director of the Menton Festival de Musique from 2002 to 2005, and is Professor at the Brussels Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth, where he prepares gifted young violinists for careers at the highest level. He has a number of recordings to his credit, many of them prize-winning.
For more information, please visit Augustin Daumay's website.
