Renaud Capuçon

On 10 April 2020, during the coronavirus lockdown, Capuçon was one of a handful of people to take part in a Good Friday service led by Michel Aupetit, Archbishop of Paris, in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which was still being rebuilt after the Notre-Dame de Paris fire a year earlier. All wore protective clothing. Capuçon provided the sole musical accompaniment.

On 4 January 2019, he performed a concert during “Winter at Tantora” music carnival running at Al-'Ula, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

In 2013 he began directing an Easter festival in Aix-en-Provence.

In June 2011, he was appointed Chevalier of the National Order of Merit by the French government and ‘Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur’ in March 2016.

On 25 May 2009, he participated in the film 7.57 am-pm directed by Simon Lelouch, in which he performed the Melody of Orpheus by Gluck on his Guarnerius in the middle of a crowd of commuters on Line 6 of the Paris Métro, unrecognized and unremarked by the passing crowd.

He has been in a relationship with journalist Laurence Ferrari since 2008, and they married on 3 July 2009. They have a son Elliott born 8 November 2010. His brother is the cellist Gautier Capuçon.

After playing a Vuillaume, a Guadagnini, and then a Stradivarius, in 2005 the Banque de Suisse Italienne BSI loaned him a Guarnerius, the "Panette" of 1737 that had belonged to Isaac Stern.

He has worked with contemporary composers such as Nicolas Bacri (solo violin sonata, 1999), Karol Beffa (duet for violin and cello Masques, concerto for violin, string quartet Mosaïques), Pascal Dusapin (concerto for violin - Aufgang), Bruno Mantovani (concerto for violin - Jeux d'eau, 2012) and Wolfgang Rihm (concerto for violin - Gedicht des Malers, 2015).

In 1996, he founded an annual festival at La Ravoire near Chambéry, the Rencontres artistiques de Bel-Air, which ended in 2010. It welcomed the most important chamber players including Jean-Pierre Wallez, Michel Dalberto, Martha Argerich, Stephen Kovacevich, Augustin Dumay, Gérard Caussé, Paul Meyer, Emmanuel Pahud, Katia and Marielle Labèque.

The prizes he has won include the 1992 first in chamber music and 1993 first in violin at CNSMD de Paris, then in 1995, the prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 2000, he was named talent of the year by Victoires de la musique classique, which in 2005 awarded him the title "instrumental soloist of the year". In 2006 he received the Georges Enescu violin prize from the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique.

Renaud Capuçon (born 27 January 1976) is a French classical violinist. Since late 2016 he has been teaching at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Capuçon was born in Chambéry on 27 January 1976. He entered the conservatory in his native city at the age of 4, and then the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP) at the age of 14 where he studied under Gérard Poulet. Three years later he completed his studies there, winning first prize in both chamber music and violin.