The (Other) Piano Man

[January 10th, 2007] It might be easy to plop queer French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (pronounced tee-bow-DAY) in with other out-there gay pop-meets-classical-piano men like Liberace, Elton John and Portland's own Thomas Lauderdale, but is it misleading?

Sure, he's gay and flamboyant, but he's also possibly the best pianist playing today. Thibaudet is a thoroughly modern piano man—and a highly sophisticated, occasionally outrageous and consistently insightful one at that. A former child prodigy in his native France, he made his solo debut with an orchestra at age 9. Thibaudet found fame in his 20s as a dazzling virtuoso with flair to spare. Audiences flocked to the handsome young man's concerts early on to hear technically flawless playing but also, in a sense, to gawk: A queen from his earliest years, Thibaudet has always felt that divas shouldn't only exist on the opera stage.

"I love fashion and great fashion artists," he says with obvious enthusiasm over the phone from a sunny cruise in the Caribbean, where undoubtedly he was decked out in a stunning swimsuit ensemble. "It's about style and class. Men have been told to wear the same old thing again and again... how boring!" The pianist, friendly with Italian high-fashion designer Gianni Versace until his death, currently has a close working relationship with forward-thinking British designer Vivienne Westwood.

In spite of his self-described flamboyant style, Thibaudet has risen to near the top of his generation of classical pianists. This season alone, he will play as soloist with the top rank of orchestras around the globe—the San Francisco and Boston symphonies, Orchestre National de France, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields—and continues an ambitious series of recordings with a new release this February: Aria, with operatic aria transcriptions for the piano.

"There's nothing like the human voice, and I try to sing with my piano," he says, noting his collaborations with stars such as soprano RenÉe Fleming and mezzo Cecilia Bartoli. Thibaudet has been increasingly involved in contributing to film soundtracks, most noticeably as a soloist in Dario Marianelli's score for Pride and Prejudice. Though it's not his favorite thing. "When you're playing soundtracks, you're not in control," he says. "Unlike when I'm playing with an orchestra, and it's really about me. But the movie industry is the only one which attracts so many people."

And what's on his iPod?

"I don't have a thick stack of classical CDs with me; I'd just as well listen to pop music or jazz," he says as Brazilian music plays in the background. And as for the iPod, he never puts one on, stating, "I don't like things in my ears." What a diva.