French viola da gamba player Salomé Gasselin won a unanimous first prize at the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award in Lugano, Switzerland in 2020. She had already won several prizes as a soloist – including a second prize at the 2018 Bach-Abel Competition in Köthen – as well as chamber music prizes with the Goldfinch Ensemble.
After hesitating between a career in rugby, drawing or genetics, she chose music and entered Marianne Muller’s class at the Lyon Conservatoire (CNSMD). She then studied at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague with Philippe Pierlot, and finally at the Salzburg Mozarteum with Vittorio Ghielmi. In parallel to her musical training, Salomé studied modern literature at the University of Paris X. She soon joined several ensembles of her generation and played with Pygmalion, Jupiter, Capriccio Stravagante, Ratas Del Viejo Mundo, Le Poème Harmonique and Masques. Attracted by contemporary creation, she works with composers such as Philippe Gouttenoire and Jerzy Bielski, as well as with the director Lazare Herson-Macarel.
In addition to her concerts, and her viola da gamba class at the Pierre Barbizet Conservatoire in Marseille, she dreams of marquetry on early instruments, and has a passion for the sound studies and for cheese.
Salomé plays a bass viol made in Paris by Simon Bongars in 1653.
