This instrumentalist is already a real master in the art of nuances, shaped transitions and in the quasi-magical breadth of half-tones.
Martin Etter, Der Bund Bern
French pianist of Polish origin, Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter was admitted at the age of thirteen to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, where he studied with Ventsislav Yankoff and Michel Béroff. In 1992, he obtained a first prize in piano and chamber music; later he took a postgraduate course.
On Krystian Zimerman’s advice, he continued his studies with Wieslaw Szlachta, professor at the Higher Academy of Music at Katowice (Poland). In 1994, he was admitted to the Musikhochschule Freiburg (Germany), where he obtained his diploma as a soloist.
Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter has followed the master classes of such eminent musicians as Dmitri Bashkirov, György Sebök (Banff Institute, Canada), Alexis Weissenberg, Léon Fleisher, and Fou Ts’ong. He was resident at the prestigious International Piano Foundation Theo Lieven at Lake Como (Italy) during the season 2001-02 and Laureate 2002 of the Festival Juventus in Cambrai (France). Maria João Pires noticed him during a workshop in December 2002 and invited him to the Piano(s) Festival 2004 in Lille (France), which he attended as a guest of honour.
He has frequently performed in Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium, Croatia, Portugal, Canada, Venezuela and Mexico, and in such prestigious venues as the Auditorio de Murcia (Spain), Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Opéra d’Avignon, at the Festival Radio-France Montpellier, at the Herkulessaal in Munich (Germany), the Nazas Theater in Torreon, the St Pedro auditorium in Monterrey (Mexico), the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Nouveau Siècle in Lille, and the Palais des FestivalsinCannes, where he was awarded the Classical Revelation ADAMI prizeat the MIDEM 1997. He also took part in several musical programmes on radio and television with France Musique, Radio Classique, Bayrischer Rundfunk, Radio Suisse Romande, TV Polonia, the BBC, RTBF and F.R.3.
As a soloist, he has appeared with the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Auvergne, the Orchestra of the Opéra d’Avignon-Provence, the Orchestra of Opéra de Paris, the Camerata de Coahuila Orchestra, Orquesta SInfónica Municipal de Caracas and the Colonne Orchestra, under such eminent conductors as Arie Van Beek, Alain Moglia, F.X Bilger, Michael Schmidtsdorff, Ramon Shade, Luis Miguel Gonzales, Gilbert Amy, Benjamin Levy and Peter Gülke.
Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter's most frequent chamber music partners have been (among others): David Grimal, Alexandre Tharaud, Edna Stern, Ronald Van Spaendonck, Alyssa Margulis, , Gionata Sgambaro, Ferenc Vizi, Peter Szabo, Virginie Robilliard and the Iturriaga Quartet.
The combined book and CD “Monsieur Satie, l'homme qui avait un petit piano dans la tête“, recorded with Ed. Didier Jeunesse in 2006, was awarded both the Prix Jeunesse ADAMI and the Grand Prix of the Academy Charles Cros 2006. Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter's CDs also include a recording of Haydn's Sonatas (Integral Classic, 2005) and works of Chopin and Liszt (Polskie Nagrania Ed.), the latter being recommended in Le Monde de la Musique's Best Recordings Guide 1998 .
In June 2008 , Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter recorded Johann Sebastian Bach Goldberg Variations with the kind support of Yamaha pianos. He has been playing this repertoire since April 2007 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and South America, where his tour has been given appraisal.
In 2009, tours will lead him to Poland in spring, with a program dedicated to Chopin and Szymanowski and again to Latin America in fall, where he will be performing solo recitals, as soloist with orchestra, as well as chamber music programmes with cellist Maja Bogdanovic.
