Montreal-born Hélène Mercier began studying piano at the age of six and soon went on to win first prizes in several national competitions. She is also a laureate of the International Chamber Music Competition in Prague.
At the age of fifteen, she entered Dieter Weber’s class at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts before furthering her studies at the Juilliard School in New York with Sascha Gorodnitzki. She later went to France to study with Pierre Sancan at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris and Germaine Mounier at the École Normale de Musique. She also worked with Maria Curcio, Stanislav Neuhaus, and, in chamber music, with Gidon Kremer and Henryk Szeryng.
Hélène Mercier now lives in Paris and participates in a number of festivals, including Aix-en-Provence, Menton, Colmar, Nohant, Evian, Reims, Piano aux Jacobins, La Chaise-Dieu, and Radio-France in Montpellier. She is also regularly heard on France-Musique, Radio Classique, France-Culture, and Radio Suisse-Romande, as well as on Radio-Canada, and on CBS in the United States. In Europe and North America, she regularly performs as a soloist and chamber musician: in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Théâtre du Châtelet, Salle Pleyel, and Salle Gaveau; in London at Wigmore Hall and South Bank Centre; in Berlin at the Konzerthaus and Gewandhaus in Leipzig; at the Dresden Music Festival; in Prague at the Rudolfinum; in Brussels at the Conservatoire and Flagey; in Italy at the Villa Medici, Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, Piccolo Teatro, and Conservatoire, Teatro alla Pergola in Florence, Academy of Music in Siena, Teatro Comunale in Ferrara, Teatro Verdi in Pisa, Teatro Regio and Auditorium Lingotto in Turin; in Luxembourg at the International Music Festival of Echternach; at the Megaron Hall in Athens and Thessaloniki, as well as in other cities including Geneva, Monte-Carlo, Madrid, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Sofia, Baku, Bergen, Finland, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, and New York. Finally, she has been invited to perform with several orchestras, including, among others, the Prague Philharmonia, the National Symphony Orchestra of RAI, the Orchestra of the Brescia and Bergamo Festival, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Fort Worth Symphony.
In Paris, Mercier has performed under the direction of Zubin Mehta with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and under the direction of Kurt Masur at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She has performed with the National Orchestra of Russia and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia under the direction of Vladimir Spivakov. In Canada, she has performed with the orchestras of Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal under the direction of Charles Dutoit, Trevor Pinnock, and Long Yu. In China, she has performed with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Long Yu. With the Orchestra de Paris, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, she has interpreted Beethoven’s Triple Concerto alongside Natalia Gutman and Salvatore Accardo. She has recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Edward Gardner and with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Neeme Jarvi and Sir Andrew Davis.
Hélène Mercier has performed with the violinist Vladimir Spivakov in Paris, St. Petersburg, Montreal, at the Colmar Festival, and at the Rencontres Musicales d’Evian. She also gives recitals with the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in Copenhagen and Paris and performs in Japan with the New Japan Philharmonic, under the direction of Seiji Ozawa.
At the request of conductor Kurt Masur, she has joined the Gewandhaus Quartet of Leipzig for a series of concerts. She also performs with the Leipzig Quartet, the soloists of the Moscow Virtuosi, as well as with violinists Renaud Capuçon, Olivier Charlier, Augustin Dumay, Ivry Gitlis, Laurent Korcia, Julian Rachlin, and cellists Gautier Capuçon, Henri Demarquette, Truls Mork, and Kian Soltani. Her chamber music activities also include duo-piano repertoire, and she collaborates with pianists Boris Berezovsky, Frank Braley, Khatia Buniatishvili, Brigitte Engerer, Cyprien Katsaris, Louis Lortie, Bruno Rigutto, among others.
Her album on the Capriccio label with violinist Vladimir Spivakov, dedicated to Ernest Chausson, garnered considerable success and received the “Choc” award from Le Monde de la Musique. With Cyprien Katsaris, she made a recording of works by Schumann and Brahms, as well as an album under the Warner Classics label with the complete Brahms Hungarian Dances and Waltzes. Also for Warner Classic, she has recorded an album of works by André Mathieu with Alain Lefèvre.
Hélène Mercier is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The CMIM thanks the members of the Jury’s circle who contribute to making it possible for the international jury to come to Montreal: Guy Breton, Colabor, Huguette and Jean-Louis Fontaine Foundation, Marie-Carole Pinard, and Marc Vanasse.
The Piano 2024 jury is housed at the Ritz-Carlton – Montreal
