Pierre de Bethmann

Born in 1965 and raised in Paris, France, Pierre de Bethmann began classical piano lessons at age 6, and soon discovered the world of jazz. He continued his musical and regular studies apace, graduated from ESCP in 1987 (major French graduate school of management), and studied one year at Berklee College of Music (Boston) in 1989. He started working as a management consultant for five years, before abandoning the desk to become a fulltime professional musician in 1995.

He first co-founded trio PRYSM with Christophe Wallemme and Benjamin Henocq. From 1995 to 2001, Prysm recorded four albums on Blue Note, performed over fifty concerts a year, including several tours in the U.S., Canada, Japan, major European festivals and the Middle East.

He then raised another project in 2001, under the code name ILIUM, exclusively based on original music, which recorded four albums in different combos, and lately a 10 to 12 piece MEDIUM ENSEMBLE, which has played in many major French venues, and released three albums between 2014 and 2019.

He currently leads an acoustic TRIO with Sylvain Romano and Nelson Veras mainly focused on standards from many musical traditions, whose fifth album was released in january 2023, a new QUARTET marked by both his own compositional research and his long-term collaboration with saxophonist David El Malek, and co-leads the four keyboard project PIANOFORTE with Baptiste Trotignon, Bojan Z and Eric Legnini.

He created his own label ALEA in 2015, and has led several artistic residencies in France, in Opéra de Lyon in 2006, in Théâtre de L"Onde à Vélizy between 2008 and 2010, in L'apostrophe, scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise, between 2012 and 2015, and Saint-Quentin en Yvelines between 2016 and 2018.

He has recorded more than twenty albums as a leader or co-leader, has taught at the CNSMDP (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris) since 2008, and was named Steinway Artist in 2023

Victoires du Jazz 2024 - French instrumental artist of the year
Grand Prix Jazz of Académie Charles Cros 2016
Victoires du Jazz 2008 - French instrumental album of the year
Django Reinhardt Prize 2004 - French musician of the year
Django d'Or 1998 - French group of the year (Prysm)
1st prize at the Concours National de Jazz de La Défense in 1994

Since the early 2000s, he has occasionally played with many major international soloists, such as Eddie Henderson, Dave Liebman, Aldo Romano, Philip Catherine, Rick Margitza, Riccardo del Fra, François Jeanneau, Eric Le Lann, Stéphane Belmondo, Stéfano di Battista, Flavio Boltro, Rosario Giuliani, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Julien Lourau, or singers Meredith d'Ambrosio, Norma Winstone, Sara Lazarus...

or in other musical fields, with American icon James Taylor, Reunionese singer Danyel Waro, Brazilian singer Marcia Maria, Canadian singer Térez Montcalm, or the composer and organist Thierry Escaich...

For many years, he has regularly collaborated with the Moutin brothers (Moutin Reunion), David El-Malek, Sylvain Beuf, Christophe Dal Sasso, Michael Felberbaum, Pierrick Pedron, Géraldine Laurent, Alex Terrier, Pierre Perchaud, Thomas Savy, Baptiste Herbin, Olivier Ker Ourio, Stéphane Huchard, Franck Vaillant, Meta, Mélanie Dahan...