Along his university studies (DEA in musicology devoted to the Sonata for clarinet in Bb and piano by Francis Poulenc, University of Paris IV- Sorbonne), Frédéric Cellier was awarded three first prizes and a development prize at the Conservatoire National de Région of Nice and also won first prize at the International Competition of Musical Execution - soloist category – of Stresa (Italy).
He is the laureate of the Fondation de France and the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation.
Clarinetist / saxophonist attracted by both classical music and jazz, Frédéric Cellier is an eclectic musician and blithely goes from one style to another with a predilection for the period of the Roaring Twenties. So he is both the interpreter of Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet and piano with Jean-Michel Damase, Jean Françaix or Gabriel Tacchino, and also performs his own version for clarinet, piano and string orchestra of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in blue (Editions Henry Lemoine, Paris, August 2013) for Wynton Marsalis or under the baton of Adrian Gershwin, grandson of the composer.
He has collaborated with many composers including Jean Françaix who, having heard him play his Quintet for clarinet and strings, is impressed by him and notes "a smooth sound and playing that combines the French virtuosity and German musicality". Soon after, he dedicated one of his last compositions to him, a work for clarinet and strings inspired by The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
He has prominently appeared at Festival de Montpellier, Festival Pablo Casals of Prades, Flâneries musicales d’été of Reims, Festival de Musique Sacrée of Nice, Concerts de l’Association Yehudi Menuhin in Saumur, Journées Messiaen of Avignon, Festival de Musique Française Georges Auric of Montpellier, Fondation Joseph Kosma of Nice, Margraflisches Opernhaus in Bayreuth, Festival Musiques Actuelles Nice-Côte d’Azur (MANCA) of Nice, Maison de Radio-France…
Specialist in the Roaring Twenties, he was also invited to give lectures and concerts on Jean Cocteau (Avec les musiciens, Book Fair, Nice, June 1997), Jean Françaix (Maison des Conservatoires, Paris, February 1997 - Polignac Foundation Paris, November 1999), George Gershwin (Rhapsody in blue, musical kaleidoscope of America, Henri Selmer Society - Vandoren Establishments, Paris, April 2015), Francis Poulenc (Henri Matisse museum, Nice, May 1997 – Journée Francis Poulenc, Bagnols-en-Forêt, July 2007), Erik Satie (Esoterik Satie, Avignon Festival, July 2002).
Among the recordings he has chosen to share freely on Youtube, we can hear his arrangement for clarinet and harp of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes – with the great French harpist Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche – and, of course, the Sonata for clarinet in Bb and piano of Francis Poulenc in which he specializes and is now recognized as one of the preeminent versions of the work.
Accredited teacher at the CNR of Nice, the CNR of Marseille, and at the CRR Olivier Messiaen of Avignon, Frédéric Cellier is artistic director of the Stradivarius music publishing.
