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Gilles Durot

Percussion

Multi-instrumentalist from an early age, Gilles Durot developed his gifts as a percussionist while studying with Jean-Daniel Lecoq at the Bordeaux Conservatoire and in Michel Cerutti’s class at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. It was not long before he put these gifts in the service of Parisian leading orchestras (Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Paris..) under the direction of Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Myung-Whun Chung, Peter Eötvös, Jonathan Nott, Susanna Mälkki, David Robertson or Matthias Pintscher.

In 2007, he joined the Ensemble intercontemporain with which he regularly plays as soloist and participates in multiple creations. He has also been a soloist of the Ensemble Multilatérale and a member of the Paris Percussion Group since their respective foundations in 2005 and 2012.

In 2008, Gilles Durot founded the Trio K/D/M with the percussionist Bachar Khalifé and the accordionist Anthony Millet. The trio has created a new repertory, which they have helped to bring to an international audience: at the Centre Pompidou (Paris), in festivals like Archipel (Genève), ManiFeste (Ircam), Musica (Strasbourg) and Présences (Radio France), at the Villa Médicis, Philharmonie de Berlin, Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Doha, Shanghai….

Gilles Durot has performed many works by composers eager to increase the use of percussion instruments in the contemporary repertory. Thus, he has premiered over 80 works as a soloist, including concertos or solo pieces by Raphaël Cendo, Bruno Mantovani, Martin Matalon, Jérôme Naulais, Gilbert Nouno, Yann Robin, Kenji Sakaï, Marco Antonio Suarez Cifuentes et Agata Zubel.

His keenness to always look out for new musical experiences has led him to work with various formations ranging from jazz to rock, working with artists of eclectic horizons including Johnny Hallyday, Les Tambours du Bronx, the rapper Kery James, the tango guitarist Tomás Gubitsch or the jazz musician Louis Sclavis.

Gilles Durot has been a professor of percussion at the Paris Conservatoire since 2016 and used to teach at the Lucerne Festival Academy.

Gilles Durot is a laureate of the Meyer Foundation for the promotion of culture and the arts and in 2010 received the Music Award of the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation that operates through the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

He is also editor-in-chief at the Artchipel Musical Editions.