Photo : © Pierre Beteille
Julien Martineau is one of today’s greatest mandolinists. Passionately committed to promoting awareness of his instrument, he has enriched the mandolin repertoire by commissioning new works from composers and transcribing a number of great scores from the classical repertoire.
He was only nineteen when he was awarded the Giuseppe Anedda Prize at the 1998 Varazze International Competition in Italy. Invited as a guest soloist at the ‘Victoires de la musique classique’ he made his debut with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini, with whom he has recorded concertos by Vivaldi and Calace (under the label Naïve). In 2021, Julien was appointed Honorary Director of the world’s largest and most prestigious organization devoted to the mandolin, the Classical Mandolin Society of America. In October 2022, he chaired the jury for the International Mandolin Competition in Tokyo.
He has performed with, to name but a few, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, the Ensemble Pygmalion, the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Lithuania, the National Orchestra of Belarus; every last one of these concert appearances has enabled him to bring to light not only the virtuosity but also the delicacy of his instrument, as have his concerts with Vanessa Benelli Mosell, Yvan Cassar, Bertrand Chamayou, Jean-François Zygel, Geneviève Laurenceau, Thibaut Garcia, Yann Dubost, Éric Franceries or the singers Roberto Alagna, Natalie Dessay, Sabine Devieilhe, Thomas Hampson, Florian Sempey.
His new album recorded with the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse (Naïve) has just been released; so has the musical tale by Thierry Huillet and Clara Cernat, La Mandoline de Lviv with Julie Depardieu (Privat/ Gallimard).
His deep interest in the mandolin finds a continuation in the passion he has developed for the instrument making. Thus, Julien Martineau has been working for several years with Savarez, the world leader in guitar string manufacture, with a view to designing new mandolin strings based on the latest technology and a high level of innovation. Besides, the model of the instrument he plays has been devised for him by one of today’s outstanding stringed instrument makers, the Canadian Brian N. Dean.
As an artistic director and founder of the Festival de Toulouse Julien Martineau was made a Knight of Arts and Letters (Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres) in 2024. He has also been awarded the Déodat de Séverac Prize by the Académie du Languedoc. Julien Martineau is a professor of mandolin at the Conservatoire de Toulouse, and is a holder both of a master’s degree in musicology from Paris IV-Sorbonne and a diploma in music history from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.
