Bertrand Cuiller

Keyboardist and horn player Bertrand Cuiller is a versatile figure who performs solo and with period-instrument ensembles, including his own Le Caravansérail. Cuiller also performs in historically oriented musical-theatrical presentations. Cuiller was born in France in 1978. His family was musical, and he began harpsichord studies at the age of eight with his mother, Jocelyne Cuiller. He enrolled at the Nantes Conservatory, where he also studied the natural horn with Marcel Ollé, and while a student there, he began what became many years of study with harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï. At 17, Cuiller went on to the Conservatoire de Paris, studying harpsichord with Christophe Rousset and also continuing horn lessons with Michel Garcin-Marrou in Lyon and later with André Cazalet in Paris. While still a student, Cuiller took third prize at the Musica Antiqua Bruges International Harpsichord Competition in Belgium in 1998. He graduated from the Conservatoire with unanimous honors in harpsichord and basso continuo playing. In 2003, he made his recording debut on a recording of Grands Motets by André Campra with Les Arts Florissants under director William Christie. His solo debut came three years later on the Alpha label, with the recording William Byrd: Pescodd Time. Cuiller has been an enthusiastic exponent of the English Renaissance keyboard repertory. Cuiller has toured widely as a solo harpsichordist and chamber player. In the former capacity, he has appeared at leading halls, series, and festivals, including the Concerts Parisiens and the Printemps des Arts de Nantes; outside of France, he has toured the U.S. and Japan. Cuiller has appeared with leading French period-instrument ensembles, including Les Arts Florissants, Le Concert Spirituel, and Le Poème Harmonique. During a residency at the Abbaye de Royaumont in 2015, he created the ensemble Le Caravansérail to explore larger forms; he remains its director. Cuiller has played chamber music with musicians, including violinists Sophie Gent and Hélène Schmitt, recorder player Marine Sablonnière, and cellist Emmanuel Balssa. He has also participated in unorthodox projects such as a program with actress Louise Moaty in a program featuring the music of Jean-Henri d'Anglebert and the letters of 17th century French politician Gabriel-Joseph de Lavergne. Cuiller also performs in the ensemble La Chair des Anges, which brings together harpsichords, string quartet, vocals, electric guitars, and organ. Cuiller has gone on to record for the Agogique, Mirare, and Harmonia Mundi labels, issuing a variety of music by François Couperin on the latter in the late 2010s. In 2022, Cuiller and Le Caravansérail issued a recording of Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater on Harmonia Mundi. ~ James Manheim, Rovi