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Sodi Braide

Pianist

Sodi Braide is a cosmopolitan artist who has been influenced by various cultures and enjoys exploring a wide repertoire of styles and periods. Currently residing in Paris, he performs in France (Radio France, Musée de l’Armée aux Invalides, Salle Cortot, Festival Chopin de Bagatelle, Festival des Serres d’Auteuil, Flâneries Musicales de Reims, Cloître des Jacobins de Toulouse, Salle Molière de Lyon among others), in other European countries (England, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Romania), in the United States (notably in the “Rising Stars” series of the Ravinia Festival as well as the Dame Myra Hess Recitals), in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador), in South Korea, in Africa and in the Middle East. He was invited to play in South Africa in 1994, becoming one of the first pianists of black African origin to play there after the end of apartheid.

Born to Nigerian parents in Newcastle, England, Sodi Braide began playing the piano at the age of three. He continued his musical studies first in Nigeria and then in France, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique (CNSM) in Paris in the classes of Jacques Rouvier and Gérard Frémy and at the École Normale de Paris with Françoise Thinat. He was then admitted to Dimitri Bashkirov’s class at the Reina Sofia School in Madrid and then to the prestigious Piano Foundation of Lake Como, where he studied with masters such as Leon Fleisher, Andreas Staier, Alicia de Larrocha and Charles Rosen among others. He also studied conducting with Claire Levacher at the CNSM in Paris and with Claire Gibault in the master classes of the Paris Mozart Orchestra.

Sodi Braide has won numerous international competitions, including Leeds (2003) and Van Cliburn (special jury discretionary prize, 2005). He is also a keen chamber musician and has played with partners such as Florent Héau, Juliette Hurel, Fanny Clamagirand, Ingrid Schoenlaub and Hélène Couvert. He is also a guest of orchestras such as the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, the Orchestre Inter Loire, the Orchestre Tempo de Toulouse and the Orchestre National Philharmonique de Caracas.

Sodi Braide’s debut as a conductor took place at the head of the Court-Circuit ensemble during the premiere of Michel Decoust’s “Pianopolis” at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord (14 March 2016). At the invitation of Claire Gibault, he also conducts the Paris Mozart Orchestra (overture to Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”, “Staël: Painting the Unattainable” by Edith Canat de Chizy…).

Sodi Braide’s performances have been broadcast on television by the MEZZO and BBC channels. He participated in the DVD recording of Saint-Saëns’ Carnaval des Animaux for the LORCOM productions label, with Pierre Arditi as reciter. After a first solo CD devoted to the composer César Franck (Lyrinx, 2006), his latest solo recording is of piano works by Franz Schubert (Solstice, 2015). It has been very favourably received by the critics: **** in Classica, “5 diapasons” in Diapason magazine… In Gramophone magazine (England), Bryce Morrison reckons that “Braide was born to play Schubert, and, I suspect, much more.”

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