Best known as an interpreter of Romantic piano music, French pianist Marie-Josèphe Jude has recorded works by Chopin, Brahms, and Clara Schumann, as well as modern repertoire by Bartók, Jolivet, Ohana, and Dutilleux. Jude began taking lessons early on in harp and piano, and was urged by György Cziffra to study piano at the Conservatoire de Paris, where she enrolled at 13. Her teachers there included Aldo Ciccolini for piano and Jean Hubeau for chamber music, and she earned her concert license for harp at the École normale de musique de Paris. In 1989, Jude was a finalist at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition, and in 1995 she won the Victoire de la musique classique "Nouveaux Talents." In 2012, she began teaching at the Conservatoire de Lyon, then took a position with the Conservatoire de Paris in 2016. She has been recording for Lyrinx since 1993, concentrating on the complete works of Brahms, sonatas by Beethoven, and Chopin's nocturnes, as well as making recordings of little known music by Jean Huré and Philippe Gaubert for the Timpani label. She also recorded a transcription of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with her colleague Jean-François Heisser on Harmonia Mundi, playing a 1928 Pleyel vis-à-vis piano from the Philharmonie de Paris’ Musée de la musique. ~ Blair Sanderson