Felicien Brut Plays For Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games
Video 1: Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 with Felicien
Brut.

Video 2: Félicien Brut plays Michel Legrand: Les parapluies de Cherbourg

Accordionist Félicien Brut performs the iconic title song from Oscarnominated “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” (1966). The nostalgic ballad was composed by iconic French film and TV composer Michel Legrand. Félicien
Brut plays a 1994 arrangement of Les Parapluies scored by Russian composer Evgeni Dervenko in 1946.

Excerpts from his website: Félicien Brut, who today travels the world to make his accordion heard, both as a soloist with major orchestras and as a central element of many chamber music ensembles. Born in Auvergne in 1986, Félicien discovered the accordion and the world of musette dances at a very young age. When he chose to start learning music at the age of six, it was primarily to play this popular repertoire intrinsically linked to his instrument.

In 1997, he joined the CNIMA (Centre National et International de Musique et d’Accordéon), and learned from professors including Jacques Mornet, Nathalie Boucheix, Domi Emorine, Roman Jbanov, and Claude Sauvage. In 2007, Félicien won three important international accordion competitions: the Castelfidardo and Klingenthal competitions and World Accordion Trophy. He then chose to continue his training with Maryse Roux at the Pôle Supérieur de Bordeaux-Aquitaine. During all these years, in contact with his teachers and other musicians, Félicien discovered many repertoires and, in particular, classical music and chamber music.

In 2009, Félicien started teaching accordion in conservatories. He first occupied a position in Libourne before joining the Conservatoire Départemental de Châteauroux. In 2013, he personally met the one he had admired the most for years: Richard Galliano. In 2016 Galliano convinced Félicien to imagine a project mixing the two repertoires he loves so much: musette and classical music. He settled in Paris and collaborated with accomplished musicians of his generation such as guitarist Thibaut Garcia, trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary, cellists Anne Gastinel and Christian-Pierre La Marca, pianist Thomas Enhco, violinist Jordan Victoria. Félicien released two albums with the Quatuor Hermès and Edouard Macarez, Le Pari des Bretelles in 2019 and NEUF in 2020, both of which were released on the Mirare label. He is the guest of renowned festivals including La Folle Journée de Nantes, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Festival Radio France Montpellier Occitanie, the Easter Festival of Aix-en-Provence, the Festival Musiq’3 of Brussels, Les Flâneries Musicales de Reims, Un Violon sur le Sable.

In 2018, Félicien decided to go beyond the world of chamber music as a soloist in front of the orchestra. He is thus heard alongside the Bordeaux- Aquitaine National Orchestra, Garde Républicaine Symphony Orchestra, the Cannes National Orchestra, and the Tours Symphony Orchestra. From repertoire to creation: Félicien Brut’s concerts are always full of twists and turns, surprises and anecdotes, and this characteristic is due above all to the repertoire he plays. He is a musician who refuses stylistic boundaries and this can be heard. From masterpieces of romantic music to the popular accordion repertoire, from French song standards to works for concert accordion from the Russian or North European schools, Félicien likes to mix eras and styles, from transcriptions to arrangements.

He associates with a group of talented composers and arrangers including Fabien Waksman (Victoire de la Musique 2023), Thibault Perrine, Romain Dumas, Domi Emorine, Bruno Fontaine, Karol Beffa, Cyrille Lehn, David Venitucci. In the space of six years, Félicien has commissioned and premiered 17 new works and a multitude of arrangements, whether in chamber music (duets, quintets, sextet) or for accordion and symphony orchestra. Félicien became a producer on France Musique in September 2021. Since then, he has hosted a weekly radio show: “Brut d’accordéon”. Traveling the most beautiful stages of the world and being an ambassador of the accordion in the four corners of the globe, Félicien signed in 2022 an artist contract with the prestigious label Erato/Warner Classics. He released his first album with this legendary label in October 2022: “J’ai deux amours”. His next album, a duet with the wonderful guitarist Thibaut Garcia, is announced in 2024.