Christopher Bayton

I have owned a French cello by Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy, from Mirecourt, for fifty years, an instrument on which I learnt to play the cello.

A professional career in arts administration at the highest international level has given me the opportunity to involve young audiences in classical music (Radio Classique, Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens du Louvre – I created the Académie de l’Orchestre de Paris and initiated projects at the Orchestre national de Lorraine of which I was the Director General).

I was an amateur musician involved in many ensembles, including the Quatuor Antonia with musicologist and writer Bernard Fournier, followed by the Quatuor Galant. In 2010, I purchased a second cello which the luthier Claire Ryder converted into a baroque cello. I was then able to pursue my passion for the continuo cello by accompanying singers in the baroque repertoire, notably in the ensemble Le Geste Musical, directed by Pierre-Jean Desnoux and Metz à Voce directed by by Jean-Pierre Aniorte. Since the stroke I suffered in 2014, my two instruments had remained silent.

I learned about Talents and Violin’celles from Jean-Marc Granet-Bouffartigue, a long-time friend and sponsor of T&V. I realised that I could perhaps envisage a new life for my instruments, which had accompanied me so well throughout my musical life, by lending them to young and talented musicians. I showed them to Raphaël Pidoux who was immediately seduced by their sound and by the equilibrium of my William Ebsworth Hill bow.

Today, it is through the intermediary of Talents et Violon ‘celles that the young and very talented cellist Arthur Saluste-Bridoux is profiting from my Thibouville-Lamy. He is going to make it sing for his great pleasure, for my great joy and that of the public !