Céline Frisch

Performing as a soloist and a member of the Baroque chamber ensemble <a href="spotify:artist:6jub7s9rumDWMz3hqcE0zX">Café Zimmermann</a>, harpsichordist Céline Frisch has played at various venues in France and other countries. In 2002, she became the first harpsichordist to earn a nomination at France's Victoires de la Musique Classique industry awards ceremony. She has a large recording catalog centered on <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">Bach</a>, appearing on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Alpha%22">Alpha</a> and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Harmonia+Mundi%22">Harmonia Mundi</a> labels. In 2024, with <a href="spotify:artist:6jub7s9rumDWMz3hqcE0zX">Café Zimmermann</a>, she released the album Young & Foolish: Mozart & C.P.E. Bach.

Frisch was born in 1974 in Marseilles. She took up the harpsichord at age six, and by 1992, she had graduated from the Conservatory of Aix-en-Provence with first prizes in harpsichord and chamber music. Frisch went on to the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, a major center for early music, where she studied with <a href="spotify:artist:3IOUX2zimWLnlS0kRyJQJq">Andreas Staier</a> and Jesper Bøje Christensen and graduated cum laude with a soloist's diploma. She also studied the organ at the Conservatoire de Rouen (CRR) with Louis Thiry. In 1996, she was named Juventus Laureate by the Council of Europe. Frisch released her debut album, Celine Frisch, Clavecin, on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Harmonia+Mundi%22">Harmonia Mundi</a> label in 2000. She followed that up in the same year with a recording of Bach's French Suites and English Suites.

In 2001, Frisch moved to the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Alpha%22">Alpha</a> label for a recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, and she has recorded exclusively for that label since then. The Goldberg Variations recording also included <a href="spotify:artist:6jub7s9rumDWMz3hqcE0zX">Café Zimmermann</a> and won two of the French music industry's major awards, the Choc de l'année of Le Monde de la musique in 2001 and the Diapason d'Or in 2002. She also garnered a nomination at the Victoires de la Musique awards, becoming the first harpsichordist ever to do so. Frisch has toured widely with <a href="spotify:artist:6jub7s9rumDWMz3hqcE0zX">Café Zimmermann</a>, appearing at such major venues as the Théâtre de la Ville and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and at such French festivals as La Roque d'Anthéron. In addition to European capitals, Frisch has appeared in Washington, D.C., Toronto, Buenos Aires, Sydney, and Seoul. She has continued to record for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Alpha%22">Alpha</a>, often recording <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">Bach</a>, and devoting one album, Die Quellen des jungen Bach (2010), to his direct predecessors. She has also issued albums of music by Rameau and Jean-Henry d'Anglebert. By 2024, when she appeared on the album Young & Foolish: Mozart & C.P.E. Bach, her recording catalog comprised more than 30 items. In 2020, Frisch became professor of harpsichord at the Early Music Institute of the University of Vienna in Austria. ~ James Manheim, Rovi