Biography

Sylvain Dessane (1989) started his musical studies with piano at the age of 8 and started to play the viola one year later.

At the age of 18, he joined the class of Isabelle Lequien at the Boulogne-Billancourt conservatoire (France), and also had lessons with Michel Michalakakos.

There, he also studied music theory, music history, music analysis with Naji Hakim, writing, sight reading, orchestra and chamber music. He kept studying piano as well until 2008.

Between 2008 and 2010, he also studied organ with Jean-Philippe Mesnier.

During the first half of 2011, he did an Erasmus exchange and studied with Rivka Golani at the Trinity College of Music in London.

In 2011, he obtained his diploma of musical studies (DEM) in Boulogne-Billancourt.

Between 2011 and 2014, he studied with Liesbeth Steffens at the Koninklijk Conservatorium of Den Haag, and also with Mikhail Zemtsov. He obtained his bachelor degree in 2014.

In 2012, he joined the Aristos Quartet, with whom he studied in Amsterdam at the Nederlands Strijkkwartet Academie (NSKA). With this quartet, he obtained a master's degree, and a post academic diploma after two more years of intensive studies.

During those years, he had viola lessons with Sven Arne Tepl, and string quartet lessons with Stefan Metz, Marc Daniel, Yovan Markovitch, Gilles Millet, Vlad Bogdanas.

He also got regular masterclasses with Prof. Eberhard Feltz, Luc-Marie Aguera, Peter Cropper, Johannes Meissel ; and worked with Rainer Schmidt, Christophe Coin, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Jerry Horner, Richard Ireland, Sandor Devich, Jonathan Brown, Abel Tomàs, Arnau Tomàs…

With the Aristos Quartet, he gave a lot of concerts in different places and festivals such as the Muziekgebouw aan't IJ, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Edinburgh festival, Orlando Festival, the Tiberius week in Romania, festival Wonderfeel etc...

During his musical life, he always played in different orchestras with Jac van Steen, Evelyne Aïello, François-René Duchable, Lawrence Foster, Martin Zieghart, Suzanne Mälkki, Rob Vermeulen, Sascha Goetzel.

Between 2016 and 2020, he was leading the viola section of the orchestra Kamerata Zuid. He is regularly playing in Het Kamerorkest van het Noorden and in the Ebony Ensemble, and is asked regularly to substitute in PHION (Orchestra of Gelderland & Overijssel) and Residentie Orkest.

Since 2017, he is regularly playing sonata programs and following masterclasses with his pianist Sander Lekkerkerk. During different masterclasses and academies, he could get the advice of Hariolf Schlichtig, Matthias Buchholz, Ulrich Koella, Corinne Contardo.

Besides all these activities Sylvain is regularly teaching the violin and the viola, and giving music lessons to very young children using the Mélopie method.