Céline Papion

cello

Céline Papion is a curious and versatile artist - cellist, performer, concert designer and artistic director. She wanders between early and contemporary music as well as music theatre and free improvisation. Her work and commitment to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries was honoured in 2019 with the "Internationale Bodensee-Konferenz" award in the category of interpretation of contemporary music.

Céline trained in France with renowned cellists and teachers such as Raphaële Sémésiz, Hélène Dautry, Ophélie Gaillard and Philippe Müller. She then travelled to Germany, where she rounded off her training with Francis Gouton and Jean-Guihen Queyras. During her studies, she was a scholarship holder of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation Live Music Now. She later received further scholarships such as the INITIAL scholarship from the Akademie der Künste Berlin together with the composer Yiran Zhao (2021-22), the Goethe Institute scholarship (2022) and the Deutscher Musikrat scholarship (2023).

She initiates, conceives, performs and directs her own projects with a penchant for experimental and interdisciplinary formats, including the PUSS Festival (2017), OTTO (2018-19) and Sonic Ocean (2022).

Continuous exchange with composers and contemporary artists also plays an important role. Céline works closely with composers such as I-lly Cheng, Oliver S. Frick, Toshio Hosokawa, Steffen Krebber, Joseph Michaels and Yiran Zhao. She is a member of collective lovemusic, Reactive Ensemble, Ensemble il capriccio, and Stiftsbarock Stuttgart. She is a board member of the Stuttgart Collective for Current Music (Stuttgarter Kollektiv für aktuelle Musik) and co-director of the ensemble for free improvisation Open_Music. 

Céline has been a guest at international stages and festivals including Musik der Jahrhunderte Stuttgart, Theater Junges Ensemble Stuttgart, Theater Rampe Stuttgart, the "Musiktheaterformen" at Gare du Nord Basel, Sinuston Festival Magdeburg, EinTanzHaus Mannheim, Opera National du Rhin, Cité de la voix in Vezelay, the Music Series at NUI Maynooth and UCC Cork (Ireland) as well as the Música Hoje Bienale for New Music in Curitiba (Brazil). She was an artist-in-residence at the Borneo Laboratory (Malaysia, 2017), Theater Rampe Stuttgart (2020-21) and Treasure Hill Artist Village Taipei (Taiwan, 2022 & 2024).