‘Transcription is necessarily an act of blasphemy. So I suppose I enjoy blasphemy!’ – Beatrice Berrut

Her intensive frequentation of the works of Liszt has nurtured her sense of narrative and her talent as a colourist. Beatrice Berrut knows how to turn her piano into a veritable orchestra, to mould the sound material, to create profoundly poetic atmospheres and transport us into a dreamlike world. For this musician, who grew up surrounded by nature, has kept her childlike soul and developed an imaginary universe populated by fantastical characters straight out of fairytale, though she does not hesitate to shake up its codes. Deftly handling the arts of transcription and composition, she tells us these stories in her own way, embracing sensuous delight, frissons and chaos.

Being convinced that there is only good and bad music, Beatrice is fluent through the composing genres, and has been commissioned to write works for classical music series as well as for electro music festivals and for movies. Her music is rooting in European tradition – with a special hint of Ravel and Scriabin-like colours for their diabolic virtuosity – and mingles with ethereal influences from American minimalism and with the heroic rhetoric of movie music. Her creativity also has led her to remake songs by MUSE and Walt Disney Classics in order to make them sound like virtuoso piano pieces by romantic composers such as Rachmaninov, Chopin or Liszt. As Mark Twain is supposed to have said: ‘they didn’t know it was impossible, so they did it!’

Both an iconoclast and an ardent defender of classical tradition, Beatrice’s strong will to democratise classical music and to overcome boundaries between genres has led her to create her own festival, where traditional classical music concerts meet klezmer, jazz or flamenco. She also enjoys collaborating with eclectic artists such as world champion ice skater Stéphane Lambiel for an upcoming magic-themed show that will explore the initiatory path of a youngster, or with contemporary dance Bonn-based company ‘Cocoon Dance’ for a performance around Beethoven’s Geister Trio at the Bonn Beethoven Fest. She has been chosen by the Geneva Observatory and the European Space Agency to play her own character in a short-movie presenting the GAIA mission, where parallels are drawn between the tasks of a concert pianist and the ones of an astrophysicist. Beatrice Berrut has been a Bösendorfer artist since 2013. This long and fruitful collaboration between the Viennese company and the Swiss pianist is the hallmark of the slightly different sound of Beatrice’s recordings.