16 June 2024 at 20:00

Éric Lebrun

A former student of Gaston Litaize, Éric Lebrun completed his studies at the Conservatoire of Paris. He graduated with the highest honours including a first prize in the organ class of Michel Chapuis. He has worked with other professors such as Anne-Marie Barat, Daniel Roth, Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard as well as with the pianists Bruno Rigutto and Pierre Duvauchelle, the orchestral conductor Gérard Devos and the musicologists Jean Maillard, Brigitte François-Sappey and Jean Saint-Arroman. With the latter he participated in the reconstitution of complete religious services of 17th century France.

Éric Lebrun has been an award winner and finalist in several international competitions (organ, composition, chamber music) and in 1990 was named titular organist of the Cavaillé-Coll instrument at the Parisian church Saint Antoine des Quinze-Vingts. There he recorded the complete organ works of Jehan Alain, Maurice Duruflé and César Franck as well as making several broadcasts for France-Musique. Lebrun collaborates regularly with Marie-Ange Leurent to perform repertoire for four hands. He also performs as a soloist with various orchestras and vocal groups. He has given the inaugural performance of many compositions for organ, some of them written especially for him.

As a composer, Lebrun has composed some sixty works ranging from solo violin pieces to large-scale oratorio. After teaching at the Conservatory of Fontainebleau and at the Sorbonne and in addition to directing the National School of Music and Dance at Cachan, Eric Lebrun founded the Didactic class at the National Superior Conservatoire of Music in Paris. He is professor of organ at the Regional Conservatoire at Saint-Maur des Fossés and regularly gives master classes throughout Europe, the U.S.A. and Mexico.

In 2006 he wrote a biography of Dietrich Buxtehude (published by Bleu-Nuit). He subsequently recorded, together with Marie-Ange Leurent, Buxtehude’s complete organ works (Bayard- Musique) which received the Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles Cros.  Following this, he recorded the organ works of Boëly (Choc du Monde de la Musique) which was accompanied by a biography of the composer written in collaboration with Brigitte François-Sappey. Éric Lebrun is also the founder and president of the Association Gaston Litaize and he and Marie-Ange Leurent recorded his complete organ works for Litaize's one hundredth anniversary in 2009.

In 2010 his Vingt Mystères du Rosaire, opus 10 was published and his double album of Franz Liszt's works was released. In 2011 he gave the inaugural concert of his Suite for organ, opus 18 at the church of Saint Eustache in Paris. The year 2012 saw the publication of his monograph of César Franck (Bleu-Nuit).

His organ class at Saint-Maur joined the Superior Pole of Excellence 93 in June 2015. In December of the same year he was named honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Music of Aarhus, Denmark. Currently he and Marie-Ange Leurent are recording the complete organ works of JS Bach on 20 CDs scheduled to be finished in 2025 (Chanteloup Musique). In 2016 he published a new biography of JS Bach (Bleu-Nuit), followed by biographies of Debussy (2018) and Fauré (2023). In 2018, Éric Lebrun received the title “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres”