- Harpsichord
Pierre Hantaï was born in 1964 into a family where art was the mainstay. As a child, he was fascinated by painting, but it was his encounter with the music of Bach that showed him the path that was to become his own. Gustav Leonhardt's harpsichord recordings had a profound effect on him. He took his first steps in music at the age of 10: living in the countryside, he first studied alone, on a small spinet, the repertoire that fascinated him and practiced chamber music with his brothers, Marc and Jérôme. He then took lessons from the American harpsichordist Arthur Haas, and later from Gustav Leonhardt, who invited him to his Amsterdam home for two years. Thus, Pierre Hantai never entered a conservatory, alternating between solitary work and the advice of great masters. At a very young age, he played with the leading figures in the small world of early music, the Kuijken brothers, Gustav Leonhardt, Philippe Herreweghe and Jordi Savall. At the same time, around his brothers and faithful friends, Hugo Reyne, Sébastien Marq, Marc Minkowski, François Fernandez, Ageet Zweistra and Philippe Pierlot, he founded several ensemble music groups: the "Lous Landes Consort", which won first prize in the Bruges chamber music competition, and the "Concert Français", which was the first stage of what would become a chamber orchestra a few years later.
He became widely known in 1993 with his recording of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, which received numerous awards, including a Gramophone Award, and led to invitations to perform all over the world. He has performed and recorded extensively the Elizabethan repertoire (Bull, Byrd, Farnaby...), Bach, Couperin and is currently working on the works of D.Scarlatti, of which he is recognised today as one of the major interpreters. He enjoys performing with his musician friends, Jordi Savall, the flutist Hugo Reyne, the violinist Amandine Beyer, his brothers and other harpsichordists with whom he frequently collaborates, Skip Sempé, Olivier Fortin, Maude Gratton and Aapo Häkkinen.
Although he is invited to conduct various chamber orchestras and to teach master classes in many countries, it is as a soloist that he most often performs. The coming year will see him perform in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Holland, Great Britain, Estonia, Japan, China, Taiwan...
He resists as much as he can the drifts of the current musical world, made of sterile communication. He is wary of the word "interpreter" and wants to remain at the service of composers, his only job being to illuminate their works. It seems to him that the way music is taught today, with exam deadlines and the planning of international competitions, has led to our practices being frozen right up to the concert hall, where everything is always planned many months in advance. For him, this is contrary to the very spirit of music.
When he takes the stage, he tries to reconnect with what has always characterised transmission in musical cultures but which we have gradually lost in the field of so-called "classical" music: the spirit of communion, the joy of the unexpected and of discovery, which he wants to rediscover both for the audience and for himself.
He regularely teaches at the Music Academy of Villecroze since 2014.