Aurelien Gignoux

Aurélien Gignoux is an eclectic and committed musician who, with the clarity of his playing, creates a unique space of musical sonority. Drawing on colours and textures with an approach of his own, he drives the audience into the different atmospheres he likes to explore. He has won several international prizes, including second prize at the ARD Competition in 2019, and the Revelation Awards at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2021. He is a soloist of the Ensemble intercontemporain.

It was clear from an early age that Aurélien Gignoux was interested in percussion. He discovered the plurality of styles and instruments that will shape his personality at the Conservatoire de Toulouse: jazz vibraphone, drums, piano and classical percussions. In Éric Sammut’s marimba class at the Conservatoire de Paris, he developed his own sound pallets, and began navigating between the classical repertoire and improvisation.

After entering the Conservatoire de Paris as Gilles Durot’s student in 2016, he furthered his training in orchestra and timpani in Germany with the soloists of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich. He received his Masters with Honours in Paris in 2021. During his student years, he gained a wealth of orchestral experience at international academies as well as with major French orchestras, such as the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He worked in close collaboration with internationally renowned conductors like Vladimir Jurowski, Valery Gergiev, Klaus Mäkelä, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gianandrea Noseda, Mikko Franck and François-Xavier Roth.

A deep interest in today’s music spurred his development as a soloist and chamber musician. In 2019, he joined Trio K/D/M known for its creativity, and took part in the creation of Bastien David’s Compagnie des Insectes around a unique 1/12-tone microtonal instrument: the Métallophone. In 2021, he founded “Parrallel Keys” with Charles Heisser, a piano/percussion duo combining improvisation and 20th century repertoire. He has premiered works by composers of today and tomorrow such as Jean-Pierre Drouet, Yan Maresz, Philippe Hurel, Mark Andre, Rebecca Saunders… As a highly committed performer, he works very closely with them, seeking to grasp and convey the composer’s vision and idea.

Aurélien really comes into his own in the genre of the concerto. He has performed as soloist with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Münchner Rundfunk Orchester, the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre Symphonique de l’Opéra de Toulon, the Orchestre du Pays Basque, the Orchestre de Caen, the Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester… His future projects involve the premieres of original concertos for percussion.

He regularly teaches at the Pôle Supérieur de Bordeaux and gives masterclasses in France and abroad. Aurélien is a Kolberg percussionist and Bergerault keyboardist.