Bio
A trumpet, placed inside a building.
Opening
His playing has been described as architectural — patient with the silence around a phrase, exact about the geometry of an attack. He works closely with composers: Clara Iannotta, Philippe Manoury, Wolfgang Rihm.
Career
Born in Saint-Étienne in 1982, Saunier studied at the CNSMD de Lyon with Pierre Dutot, then at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe with Reinhold Friedrich. He joined the Ensemble intercontemporain in 2008 and became its principal trumpet in 2013.
As a soloist he has appeared with Sinfonia Varsovia, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, RSO Wien, the SWR Symphonieorchester and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
Repertoire
The repertoire moves on three axes: the post-war concerto literature (Zimmermann, Eötvös, Gruber, Tomasi); the Stockhausen orbit (Aries, Sirius, Cantate pour la décade); and the chamber writing that has grown around him at the Ensemble intercontemporain.
He plays on a B♭ Bach Stradivarius 43*ML and a Yamaha Custom YTR-9335CHS C trumpet; piccolo on a Schilke P5-4.
On Claves, Mirare, Alpha, EIC, col legno
Works written for him since 2010
Principal trumpet since 2013
Programme notes in FR, EN, DE, IT