Yannick Nézet-Séguin releases debut solo piano album 'Introspection'

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is not only a conductor, but also a pianist. In Summer 2020, when the pandemic forced the reduction of cultural life all over the world, he found, as he describes it, “kind of a salvation” in playing the piano – and recorded his very first Piano Solo Album. It is inspired also by the memory of his admired teacher Anisia Campos who had passed away that year.

Playing the piano “gave me an opportunity for introspection, something that I think most of us did – not only artists and musicians, but every human being – recalibrating our priorities, what our purpose is in life, and what our aspirations are“, says Yannick Nézet-Séguin about this project. However, “now that I’m a conductor, when I go back to my instrument I especially want to find the intimacy and the softer colors, the soothing ones and also the painful ones, the unknown areas where composers go”.

“It was important for me to reflect the whole range of repertoire that Madame Campos taught me,” continues Yannick Nézet-Séguin “and to offer this album as a journey through some very dark and intimate places, but also through some dreamy ones, more positive and hopeful. It’s a broad spectrum from Scarlatti to today.” One piece included on this album (D‘après Hopper) has been composed especially for Yannick Nézet-Séguin by the great composer Éric Champagne and dedicated to him during the pandemic.

The album Introspection includes music by Debussy, Chopin, Brahms, Scarlatti, Mozart and Rachmaninoff amongst others and is released digitally today, 4 June 2021. It will be followed by a vinyl release of selected tracks later in the summer.