Biography

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A fiery and impassioned temperament! » – Daria Hovora, pianist

As a child of five, Eléonore Darmon would listen over and over to her Hungarian gypsy violin records. By the time she was ten, she knew: she would be a violinist. In fact, the little musician’s ardent enthusiasm was noticed by Ivry Gitlis when she appeared on French television in the children’s talent show l’Ecole des Fans. Introduced to music by her mother, a pianist, and then to violin by Véronique Dominger and Marthe Tercieux, Eléonore was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 14. She studied violin and chamber music with Michael Hentz and Daria Hovora, and after earning first prizes in both disciplines, she sought fresh perspective in Florence, where she studied with Pavel Vernikov, and then pursued her training in Vienna. These experiences enhanced the range of her sound with new colours. “My violin is my voice,” she says.

Eléonore has won several international prizes and received awards from three foundations: Banque Populaire, Cziffra and Or du Rhin. Her career as a concert violinist began at age 16 with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Concerto with the Nancy Symphony Orchestra. The conductor, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, was as astounded as the audience by this “phenomenal young violinist”. She went on to appear with a number of orchestras in France and abroad, including the Paul Kuentz Chamber Orchestra, with which she performed over 50 times as a soloist starting at the age of 14.

Even when she plays as a soloist, Eléonore Darmon sees music as an act of sharing and reciprocity: “Everything is chamber music! Whether facing the orchestra or in the orchestra, with piano or as part of a quartet, the violinist must have the same ability to listen to the other musicians,” says Eléonore. Between 2013 and 2016, she held the position of concertmaster for the Orchestre de l’Alliance in Paris – an orchestra with which she performed Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Major at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, in a concert that was filmed and that can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube. Since 2015, Eléonore has been a regular guest violinist with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and with the orchestras of Lille, Montpellier and Bordeaux as principal second or third violinist.

In 2018, she substituted several times for the concertmaster of the Aarhus Orchestra in Denmark, first in a programme focused on Copland and then in all four Brahms symphonies. This is how the orchestra’s permanent conductor, Marc Soustrot, described the experience:

“This performance of the complete Brahms symphonies gave me an opportunity to discover a brilliant musician with a strong, determined temperament, everything that is indispensable for the position Eléonore held for four concerts (three different programmes). Her musicianship and technique proved indispensable to the success of the concerts.”

Éléonore performs on a Gianbattista Grancino violin with a Eugène Sartory bow.