Hugo Clédat was born in1990. He studied first piano then the clarinet from 2001: Conservatories of Rueil-Malmaison (Claire Vergnory), then Lyon CNSM (Nicolas Baldeyrou class) where he gets his Masters with highest honors in 2013. He also studied chamber music in Rueil with Michel Moraguès. He got in 2007 a 1st Prize in the 14th European Music Competition in Picardy.
Hugo has played in various orchestras (Pasdeloup-Paris, Marocco Philharmonic) and chamber music ensembles in France and Europe. He also plays jazz, free-jazz and soul music with several groups and is interested in music for bass clarinet.
He teaches in a Conservatory near Paris (Sartrouville) since Sept. 2013.
He has played at the ClarinetFest in Baton Rouge (Louisiana, USA) in July 2014.
Hugo Clédat WordPress review – ClarinetFest 2014 – Bâton Rouge – USA :
«French clarinetist Hugo Cledat performed an exquisite recital in the School of Music recital hall. He began with Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie, whose ethereal quality he captured with a sweetly penetrating tone, and whose final section he played with brilliance and passion. The next piece, Donatoni’s Clair for unaccompanied clarinet, was a marked contrast in style, with extreme altissimo notes and cascading trills and scales in what sounded sometimes like a free-jazz improvisation and sometimes like an aviary of very excitable birds. Cledat performed the work with incredible control and a most remarkable sense of charm and even occasional humor. The brief recital finished with an arrangement of Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy made by Nicolas Baldeyrou. Cledat’s rendition made it sound as if this warhorse had in fact been originally written for clarinet, tackling the virtuosic writing and leaping all over the clarinet’s range with great panache and style. Cledat brought a balance of sensitivity and playfulness to the program that was a joy to hear.» – Notes by Michael Rowlett
Michael Rowlett is the assistant Professor of Clarinet at The University of Mississippi.