About | Raphael Merlin

About

Raphaël Merlin has always explored music from different angles and through different lenses: his curiosity for every style and his appetite for every practice have given him a remarkable overall vision and great versatility.

Cellist of the Quatuor Ebène from 2002 to 2023, composer, conductor and teacher, he founded Les Forces Majeures in 2014, was appointed professor of chamber music at the Munich Hochschule in 2020, Artistic and Music Director of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra (OCG) in 2023, and in 2025 became professor at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne (HEMU) and Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine (OCNA).

Born in 1982, he began at the age of six at the Clermont-Ferrand Conservatoire (CNR): cello, chamber music, piano, composition, jazz piano. In 1997 he joined the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatoire (CNR), studying with Xavier Gagnepain, Hortense Cartier-Bresson and Janos Komives, his conducting teacher. Having earned a first prize in each of these disciplines, in 2001 he was admitted as top-ranked candidate into Philippe Muller’s cello class at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM), from which he graduated four years later with an advanced diploma, unanimous highest distinction.

Chamber music, first practised within the family, became essential when he joined the Quatuor Ebène (today made up of Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure, Marie Chilemme and Yuya Okamoto), first prize winner of the 2004 ARD International Music Competition in Munich, and winner of the Victoires de la Musique in 2010 and 2020. With a rich discography for Erato/Warner, invited onto the world’s most prestigious stages (Berlin Philharmonie, London Wigmore Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Zurich Tonhalle, Washington Library of Congress, New York Carnegie Hall, Tokyo Suntory Hall,e des Champs-Élysées,Philharmonie…), the Quartet — whose regular partners include Nicholas Angelich, ElisabetLeonskaïa, Menahem Pressler, Mitsutthias Goerne, R&G Capuçon, as wellas artists from beyond classical music such as Bernard Lavilliers, Stacey Kent and Micheundertook a world tour, recorded aplete Beethoven quartets in 2019,and gave the full cycle in concert for the composer’s 250th anniversary celebrations. Thwho guided the Quartet’s developmeg, G. Takács-Nagy, and the QuatuorYsaÿe.

After extensive cacine, Sérénade Orchestra, OLC, Opus 93, Le Petit Lion, Ostinato…), in 2014 he founded Les Forces Majeures with Martin Kubichtogether chamber music ensembles fossini album released on Apartéwith mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes met with great success, followed by an album with celMoreau (Offenbach-Gulda, Erato/Ware at the Opéra de Vichy in 2018,Raphaël conducted a staged version of The Barber of Seville as well as various symphonicprogrammes, and led, over a singletour by a symphony orchestra (35musicians, 4 concerts over 65km). Since then, Les Forces Majeures, driven by Robin Ducancontinued to expand this concept, d audiences to question ourcarbon-based way of life and breaking down the boundaries around how so-called classicalused.

He has since been invited to conduct the Orchestres of Rouen, Mulhouse,Bordeaux, Avignon, Aube, Toulon, tWR Symphonieorchester, theKammerphilharmonie Bonn, and the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, and works with Brad MehlGabriela Montero, Elsa Dreisig, Tre Fouchenneret, Sarah Nemtanu,Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, the Lausanne Vocal Ensemble, and the Chœur Aedès… In October 20world tour of The Rite of Spring (by the École des Sables Ballet andSadler’s Wells, concludes after 5 years in Geneva under his direction, marking the firstcollaboration/merger between the O de Savoie.

In 2008, the Klangforum Mitte Europa and the Forberg-Schneider FoundatiRaphaël Merlin his first commissiostring quartet and orchestra, Eléa,premiered in March 2011 in Kraków and then Munich by the Quatuor Ebène. See: Sea and Seecello and strings, premiered at thlas Altstaedt, and the octetPassage-Éclair (commissioned by La Belle Saison), were recorded and released on Alpha, asextet Night Bridge (2017) on Warn has grown by roughly one piece peryear.

The son of a litecian, passionate about teachingsince meeting Xavier Gagnepain, and a holder of the CA (Certificat d’Aptitude) teaching qualification, he has taught celloConservatoire (CRR), and regularlygives chamber music masterclasses at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM), the American ConserFontainebleau, the Universities ofton, and the Colburn School in LosAngeles. He leads numerous educational orchestral projects: Koblenz Imuko, CMGO Geneva, MusicEnsemble, and the Nîmes Conseces Majeures welcomes conservatoirestudents for intergenerational concerts, and the OCNA will open its 2026 season with G. Mahler’s 5th Symphony, in partnership with atoires of Bordeaux, Poitiers andTours).