PETIT, Julien-David (FRA)

Julien-David Petit was born in the Bordeaux region in 1979. He began his musical education at the age of six, with the clarinet. He continued his studies with Jacques Net at the Conservatoire National de Région in Bordeaux (Gold and Honor medals), then with Claude Delangle, Nicholas Angelich and Marie-Françoise Bucquet at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, where he won First Prizes in saxophone and chamber music.

Petit has won prizes at a number prestigious international saxophone competitions, including second prize at the International Adolphe Sax Competition in Dinant (Belgium), third prize at the International ARD Music Competition in Munich (Germany). He has been invited to take part in concerts and festivals in Europe, Canada, the United States, Asia and Russia. He has given solo performances for the Hofer Symphoniker, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, the Royal Belgian Air Force, the Orchestra of the French Republican Guard, Filharmonia Krasnoyarsk, and more.

Petit has featured in radio programmes on Radio France, Radio Classique, RTL (Alain Duault), France Inter, France 2, and Mezzo. He won the Natixis Banque Populaire Foundation scholarship and the Boursier Tremplin Jeunes Selmer scholarship. In 2003, he was named a breakout artist by the Classica magazine and, in 2004, he released his first album, La Escapada, with pianist Vincent Balse (Lyrinx label). At the request of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Petit recorded Saxophon, a solo album featuring some of the composer’s new work for saxophone, including several pieces dedicated to the musician (ed. Stockhausen).

As a lover of traditional eastern music, Julien-David Petit, cellist Béatrice Reibel-Petit and the Klezele klezmer trio recorded Mosaïque, an album combining Jewish scholarly and folkloric music (Integral Distribution, 2007). He also produced a show entitled Une Voix dans le désert, which featured music, dance, sand drawings and spatial installation. In 2008, this show toured Russia, from Moscow to Vladivostok. Working with the Klezele trio, he released Freyleh from Vladivostok in 2009 (Integral Distribution). Building on these projects, he co-founded the KolorBach ensemble, which combines Bach transcriptions, traditional music, improvisations and original compositions. The KolorBach album will be released in 2019 by Proclam’Art Productions.

Julien-David Petit regularly teaches master classes, at the Rencontres Musicales Internationales des Graves, European University of Saxophone in Gap, the Habanera saxophone academy, and in Madrid, Cologne, Glasgow, Tokyo, Seoul, Moscow, Paris and more. Petit has opened an international saxophone class at the PROCLAM’ART cultural hub in the Paris region. Every year, he receives students from France and abroad who wish to further their training and prepare for life as professional musicians. Petit holds a musical teaching diploma (the certificat d’aptitude) and gives classes at the Conservatoire National d’Aubervilliers. He is supported by the Selmer company.