biography ( english)
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biographie ( français)
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✢ THOMAS LEFORT
"His playing is highly inspired, with great flair, vocal qualities, and a recognizable personal voice."
Hagai Shaham
"A wonderful style of virtuosity with an original character that is very distinctive and unique."
Kyoko Takezawa
"A very interesting musician with his own ideas and style. Thomas Lefort adopts an almost operatic approach, which is so rare among today’s young performers."
Maxim Vengerov
"Unusual music in the most wonderful way, an authentic musician with absolute originality and sincerity. His playing is dignified, generous, with great poise and a lot of warmth."
Jian Wang
"A marvelous spontaneity and freshness"
Joel Smirnoff
"A strong and unique personality, a highly original sound quality, reminiscent of the masters of the golden age – a keen instinct for music"
Emmanuel Hondré
"A style that is uniquely his own, reminiscent of the great violinists of the 20th century’s golden age. A very natural playing style with contagious qualities. A highly creative and musically magnetic personality"
Glenn Dicterow
"Thomas Lefort definitely has his own style. He evokes an era and an older way of playing the violin and making music."
Philip Setzer
Discovered at the age of 13 by Ivry Gitlis, Thomas Lefort was his disciple until Gitlis’s passing and shared an intense and close mentorship with him, both in terms of violin technique and human connection. Comfortable in all repertoires, he now champions the legacy and musical generosity of the last great violin legend to have spanned the 20th century.
Born in 1994 in Marseille, a student of Frédéric Ladame, then Suzanne Gessner and Patrice Fontanarosa in Paris, he was unanimously admitted in 2012 to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Roland Daugareil, graduating with the highest distinctions, earning a First Prize in Violin. He furthered his studies in Italy under the guidance of violinist Salvatore Accardo at the Chigiana Academy in Siena and the Walter Stauffer Academy in Cremona, where he mastered the secrets of the Italian violin school and developed a taste for the acrobatic virtuosity of Niccolò Paganini’s works. He also studied with Renaud Capuçon at the Haute École de Musique in Lausanne, earning a Master’s degree as a soloist, and explored chamber music under teachers such as François Salque, Jérôme Pernoo, Nobuko Imai, Pamela Frank, and Sadao Harada at the Seiji Ozawa International Chamber Music Academy.
He is the laureate of numerous major international awards: Ginette Neveu International Competition (2007), Rodolfo Lipizer International Competition (2009), Isaac Stern International Competition Grand Prize in Shanghai (2022), Île-de-France Young Talent First Prize (2007), Audience Prize at the Young Performers’ Autumn Musical Festival (2012), First Grand Prize at the European Young Talents Competition Un Violon sur le Sable (2014), Banque Populaire Foundation Prize (2016), France Foundation Prize (2017), l’Or du Rhin Foundation Prize (2018), and more.
Thomas Lefort has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, the Romanian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Padua Orchestra, the Pasdeloup Orchestra, the Île-de-France Youth Orchestra, the Ostinato Orchestra, the Pays de la Loire Orchestra, the Cannes-Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Regional Orchestra, the Avignon-Provence National Orchestra, and others, under the baton of conductors such as Jean-Claude Casadesus, Dmitri Liss, Lawrence Foster, Alain Altinoglu, Bruno Mantovani, Adrian McDonell, Roberto Fores Veses, Nicolas Chalvin, Jonathan Schifmann, Chloé Dufresne, Julien Leroy, and more. He has performed in venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris, Salle Gaveau, Salle Cortot, Salle Pleyel, Théâtre du Châtelet, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Banque de France, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Stravinsky Auditorium in Montreux, Ekaterinburg Philharmonie, Palazetto Bru-Zane in Venice, Grand Amphithéâtre de La Sorbonne, Fondation Singer-Polignac, Théâtre de Provence, Théâtre d’Avignon, Théâtre National de Saint-Nazaire, Théâtre de Nîmes, Opéra de Marseille, and others, as part of festivals such as the Martha Argerich Festival in Hamburg, the Gstaad Musical Summits, the International Les Sommets du Classique Festival in Crans-Montana, the Le Salon Romantique Festival at Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice, Les Folles Journées in Nantes and Ekaterinburg, the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron Festival, Chopin Festival in Nohant, Un Violon sur le Sable Festival, Menton Festival, and more.
His debut album, Folk, was made possible through the generous support of the Patrick & Ute Petit Scholarship, recorded in duo with pianist Pierre-Yves Hodique (recipient of the Best Accompanist Prize at the 2011 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow) and released in 2019 under the Mirare label. It features works “that made the reputation of the princes of the bow” (Cadences), where “generous in his impulses and timbres, he demonstrates great confidence, fine sensitivity, and undeniable technical assurance, a style without exaggeration or unnecessary effects, serving the spirit of each piece with genuine commitment” (Diapason). Recently, he released his second solo album, Il Violino Solo (2023), featuring works by Paganini, Bach, and Ernst.
Thomas Lefort has contributed to the soundtracks of several films composed by Grégoire Hetzel: L’Innocent (2022) directed by Louis Garrel, Frère et Sœur (2022) and Tromperie (2021) directed by Arnaud Desplechin, as well as the Canal+ series Paris 1900 (2021).
He is the co-creator and artistic director of the Les Étoiles du Classique Festival in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, sponsored by Martha Argerich in 2022 and Jean-Claude Casadesus and Karine Deshayes in 2023. The festival brings together the best young classical musicians for four festive days of open-air performances, making classical music accessible to all.
He teaches violin at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot. He plays a replica of an Antonio Stradivari violin, “Le Tivadar Nachéz,” from 1709, crafted by Stephan Von Baehr.
Thomas Lefort © 2025. All rights reserved.
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