Clara Bellegarde

The French harpist Clara Bellegarde grew up in a musical environment: Her parents were both musicians, which significantly shaped her early approach to music. She discovered her love of the harp at the age of six in her home town of Lille. This passion led her to an impressive career: in 2015, at the age of just 23, she was appointed principal harpist of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Since then, Clara has not only thrilled audiences in Hamburg, but also as a guest musician in renowned orchestras worldwide. She performs regularly with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam.
Under the direction of conductors such as Kent Nagano, Charles Dutoit, Tugan Sokhiev, Philippe Jordan, Teodor Currentzis, Antonio Pappano and Paavo Järvi, she has performed in some of the world's most famous concert halls: at the BBC Proms in London, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Vienna Musikverein, the Salzburg Festival, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the Sala São Paulo. In January 2017, she played the opening concert of the Elbphilharmonie, one of the most beautiful concert halls in the world, with her orchestra, the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Her love of chamber music has taken Clara Bellegarde to international stages and festivals, where she has performed at the Forest Hill Musical Days in San Francisco, the Norsjø Chamber Music Festival in Norway, the Italian festival Tra Luce e Sogno and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, among others. She has performed with outstanding artists such as Mari and Momo Kodama, Nils Mönkemeyer, Veronika Eberle, Edicson Ruiz, Xavier De Maistre, Hartmut Rohde, Luigi Piovano and Matt Haimovitz. She has also performed as a duo with the English horn player Ralph van Daal, with whom she has made several recordings, and with the soprano Maria Chabounia, which also reflects her passion for the operatic repertoire.
Clara Bellegarde received her training at renowned music academies. After preliminary studies with Anne Le Roy, she completed her bachelor's degree with Isabelle Moretti at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris before obtaining her master's degree at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt with Françoise Verherve. She gained her first orchestral experience in the Orchestre Français des Jeunes and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, where she received decisive impulses for her career as a young musician. She later returned to this orchestra as a coach to share her knowledge and experience with the next generation.
She appreciates the harp's versatile sound, which is not only heavenly and delicate, but can also be very powerful and express her soul. Both on the concert stage and in the orchestra pit at the opera, she loves the harp's role in adding a very special timbre to the overall sound, thus creating something unique together.