Académie Ravel 2025 – Bertrand Chamayou’s editorial

We are deligthed to present the 2025 session of the Académie Ravel. With more than 50 years of history, the Académie Ravel is committed to keeping alive the legacy of Maurice Ravel and his contemporaries, and is part of a long line of teaching that has come to be known as the French school.

The 2025 session builds on the momentum of recent years. This years the teaching team is made from historical members and new musical figures, combining French excellence with an international outlook. Pairs of teachers with complementary approaches have been formed, sometimes illustrating a lineage between master and pupil, as for the cello and piano classes, where Sol Gabetta and I will be joined by our former mentors: Ivan Monighetti and Jean-François Heisser.

The Académie Ravel is also expanding with the opening of two new classes: flute and clarinet. Nicolas Baldeyrou and Sophie Cherrier, two great French soloists, will open up new opportunities in woodwinds. This year, the bonds with the Festival will be strengthened. In addition to lessons with their teachers, students will benefit from masterclasses with leading composers invited at the Festival. Students from the current and previous sessions will also be programmed as part of the Festival, in order for us to be a real stepping stone for young musicians.

This support for young artists also extends beyond the academy, throughout a concert booking and numerous partnerships established in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine area to provide students with professional performance opportunities.

In its own time, Maurice Ravel was extremely attentive to the younger generation of composers and new aesthetics. Contemporary music is therefore always at the heart of the academy’s project, with the next chapter of the composition class inaugurated four years ago and directed for the third year by Swiss composer Michael Jarrell. The new works by Pedro González Álvarez and Imsu Choi, joint winners of the 2024 Académie Ravel Composition Prize, will be premiered this summer during a Festival special day dedicated to popular melodies. A 1st Composition Prize will also be awarded at the end of this session, leading to a new commission for the Festival 2026.

Since 2024, the Académie Ravel takes place in the new Peyuco Duhart Cultural Center in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, which offers a unique venue for classes, privileged work spaces, living spaces, and Salle Tanka a large concert room and a remarkable setting for public concerts and masterclasses.

We look forward to seeing you in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
See you this summer!

Bertrand Chamayou
Chairman of the Académie Maurice Ravel and Artistic director