Jean-Marc Fessard

Jean-Marc Fessard (born 31 October 1969) is a French classical clarinetist.

Born in Étampes, Fessard studied at the Conservatoire de Paris (1st prize for clarinet, bass clarinet, and chamber music) at the Paris 8 University (master of musicology) and at the Higher Academy of Music in Gdańsk in Poland where he received the title of Doctor of Arts (PhD).

Fessard received 1st prize in the Interpretation Competition Jacques Lancelot (1990).

He has recorded about thirty CDs for labels such as Dux, Naxos, Signature Radio France, Triton, Kalidisc, Accord Universal, Clarinet Classics...Yvonne Loriod- (Dux 0459).

Fessard is particularly interested in the rare clarinet repertoire, notably recording Alexandre Tansman's clarinet music (concerto, concertino, chamber music with string quartets), Charles Koechlin's sonatas, Jacques Castérède, Jacques Bondon's and Henri Tomasi's concerti and Piotr Perkowski's pieces for clarinet and piano, Antoni Szałowski, Piotr Moss and Karol Rathaus.

He is the winner of the Paris International Competitions (3rd prize 1996), Illzach (1st prize 1997), Gdańsk (1st prize and Special Brahms-Preis 1997).

In 2008, he collaborated with Krzysztof Penderecki for the premiere of his Sinfonietta for clarinet and string orchestra during the Yerevan festival in Armenia.

He has dedicated and created numerous contemporary pieces for clarinet and bass clarinet such as the Bruno Letort's Clarinet Concerto, Shkodra inspired by the character of La frontière invisible by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters and premiered at the Szczecin Philharmonic (Poland) and Michel Lysight's concerto for bass clarinet premiered with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie.

He has performed with the Polish National Radio Orchestra, the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gdańsk Philharmonic Orchestra, the Katowice Philharmonic Orchestra, the Azerbaijan National Orchestra, the Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, l'Orchestre de chambre wallon, the Zagreb Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Wrocław, the Élysée Quartet, the Ébène Quartet and the Wieniawski Quartet.

In 2011 he gave the Warsaw Radio Tansman's Concerto with the Silesian Chamber Orchestra and recorded Piotr Moss's clarinet concerto D'un silence..., a huge musical fresco of forty minutes in one movement, with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

He is a member of the Ensemble Sillages with whom he recorded a monograph dedicated to Allain Gaussin which received the Grand Prix of the Académie Charles-Cros in 2014 (Ameson)

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Fessard is invited for master classes by the Higher Academies of Prague, Poznań, Gdańsk, Katowice, Baku, the Royal College of Music in London, the University, the Chinese Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing) and the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie.

Fessard is also regularly invited as a member of the jury of the Alexandre Tansman International Competition in Lódz, the Johannes Brahms International Competition in Gdańsk, the Lódz Chamber Music Competition, the Kurpiński Competition in Włoszakowice and the Conservatoire de Paris Competitions.

He is the author of L'évolution de la clarinette and a clarinet method Écoute, je joue!, published by Gérard Billaudot in Paris, a publisher for which he is collection director.