Pianist and conductor Jean-Bernard Pommier (1944 - 2026) remembered
Farewell to a musical friend
North East classical music lovers will be saddened by news of the death on April 23 of Jean-Bernard Pommier, the great French concert pianist and conductor, following a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 81.
He was principal conductor and artistic director of the Northern Sinfonia (not yet ‘Royal’) from 1996 to 1999 but he had already worked with the orchestra for over two decades.
Thus Jean-Bernard put in 35 years of high quality musical contribution to this region of which he’d become truly fond.
During his prodigious career, starting in the early 1960s, Jean-Bernard Pommier performed as solo pianist with almost every major orchestra across the world and with most distinguished conductors of his time.
In addition, he performed as a chamber musician with the finest instrumentalists in many important capital cities, while latterly he was also in demand as an accomplished orchestral conductor.
Before Pommier’s first appearance in Newcastle in 1975, as a visiting guest conductor to prepare for concerts in France, the orchestra had no previous experience of him.
Very quickly, though, the musicians realised that he was assured, competent and clear in expressing his wishes by gesture without having – in those early years - more than the simplest English.
When an intended soloist became unavailable, Pommier simply shrugged and said: “So, we play together…..”
He sat down at the keyboard, played the concerto himself and directed the orchestra too.
“Hey, this guy’s the real deal!” I thought at the time. And so it proved, for he was to return as a guest soloist, solo director and conductor annually for the next quarter of a century, a popular figure with both the orchestra and audiences.
Of course, there were occasional moments of tension for Pommier was a mercurial Languedocian (from Cazoul-les-Béziers, southern France) let loose among Brits, but he would always apologise with his ready smile if he thought he’d caused offence.
Nonetheless he could be relentlessly demanding, and rightly so.
In time, Northern Sinfonia concerts with Pommier conducting featured all around the North East and the wider UK including London.
There were also concerts in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Andorra, Norway, Switzerland, India and the USA.
Concerts with Jean-Bernard never became ‘routine’ for he could always call on something new in his performances, making them fresh experiences for his musicians and for audiences too.
His respect for the public was a genuine attitude from deep within.
As 1999 was to be his last official year with the Northern Sinfonia, four of its musicians decided to bring him back by means of an enterprise of his called Musikè, a mobile form of international summer school for advanced student performers and young professionals.
Pommier himself and four like-minded solo artists (our ‘professors’) coached violin, viola, cello, oboe and, of course, piano, the concept being to hold Musikè events in locations of cultural ambience, in our case Durham.
The professors also contributed chamber music ‘master concerts’ that were attended by the young artists.
It proved so successful that it was repeated in 2001 and then annually to complete a full decade.
Jean-Bernard leaves a second wife (violin soloist Olga Martinova) and two adult daughters from his earlier partner.
Ron Thorndycraft (former Northern Sinfonia musician)