French pianist Yannick Rafalimanana has enjoyed a distinguished international career, performing as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, the United States, South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. After winning 1st prize at the “Tufts/New England Conservatory Soloist Competition” in 2012, he made his U.S. debut at Symphony Hall in Boston performing Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart.
He has recently performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, Baden-Baden, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Chamber Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Kennedy Center Washington, live on Boston’s WBGH radio station, with the Borromeo String Quartet at Jordan Hall, with violists Kim Kashkashian and Thomas Riebl in Boston, with violinists Andreas Reiner and Arnold Steinhardt in Poland, and with Itzhak Perlman at Shelter Island (NY). He also made his recital debut in Brazil with a performance at the Mube Museum and debuted at the Jerusalem Music Center in Israel.
Yannick Rafalimanana has won numerous prizes and awards at various competitions, including the “Borromeo String Quartet Guest Award”, the “Concours J-Musiciens” in Brussels, the “Concours de Brest” and the competition of the Académie Internationale de musique Maurice Ravel.
As a soloist he performed together with the Orchestra of the Lille Conservatory, the Orchestre Impromptu and the Ensemble Parisien. He recently founded the LFO, a chamber orchestra he directs in Boston made up of students from the New England Conservatory, with whom he has performed as a soloist. Yannick Rafalimanana also plays regularly with Trio La Plata, an ensemble founded in Paris in 2006.
A proponent of new music, his experience as an orchestral pianist has enabled him to play under the direction of Peter Eötvös, Jean Deroyer, Timothy Brock, Zolt Nagy and John Heiss. He has performed at the Cité de la musique and Radio France in Paris, at Jordan Hall and the Harvard Musical Association in Boston, and at the Poisson Rouge in New York. He also works regularly with the Ensemble Le Balcon under the direction of Maxime Pascal in Paris.
Yannick Rafalimanana has participated in numerous festivals, including the Perlman Music Program, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Brussels Chamber Music Festival, the Krzyzowa-Music Festival in Poland, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Festspiele Baden-Baden in Germany. He has also worked with some of the most renowned musicians, including Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Joseph Kalichstein, Kim Kashkashian, Gary Hoffman, Paul Katz, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Roger Tapping, Julian Arp, Frank Stadler, and Andrei Bielov.
Born in Lille, France, Yannick Rafalimanana began his musical studies at the Conservatoire National de Région there with Alain Raës. He later studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, graduating with honors in piano, piano accompaniment and chamber music. His teachers include Bruno Rigutto, Michaël Levinas and Jean-Claude Pennetier (piano) and François Salque, Michel Moragues, David Walter and Jean Koerner (chamber music and piano accompaniment). Further studies led him to the New England Conservatory, where he earned a diploma in piano accompaniment and a master’s degree in chamber music in the class of Vivian Weilerstein.
From 2015 to 2018, Yannick Rafalimanana taught chamber music at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.