Maxime Desert
Born in 1981, Maxime Desert began playing the violin at the Conservatoire de Valenciennes at the age of 7. After a gold medal at the Douai Conservatory, he turned to the viola and received the Excellence and Chamber Music Prize at the Conservatoire National de Région de Rueil-Malmaison in 2005, in Françoise Gneri's class. He also benefited from the advice of Tasso Adamopoulos and Pierre-Henri Xuereb.
In 2005, he entered the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels in the class of Thérèse-Marie Gilissen where he obtained his Master's degree with great distinction in June 2010. He then pursued his pedagogical training and June 2011 received his Aggregation of Higher Secondary Education with Distinction.
He has also benefited from the advice of great masters such as the Jerusalem Quartet, Alfred Brendel, Gabor Takacs, Andrés Keller, David Alberman, Nicholas Kirchen, Natalia Prischepenko, Eberhard Feltz, and others.
From 2010 to 2019, he was part of the Tana Quartet, giving many concerts and participating in renowned festivals such as Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Darmstadt, Clef de Soleil, Festival Debussy, Villa Médicis, and Les Musicales de Chalosse.
He is a laureate of the Verbier Festival Chamber Music Academy in 2012 and HSBC laureate of the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2013 with the Tana Quartet.
His recordings of the complete quartets of Jacques Lenot, Steve Reich and Philip Glass have been praised by the press and rewarded with a special prize from the Charles Cros Accademy and with a CHOC CLASSICA award. As a pioneer in contemporary creation, the Tana Quartet has been awarded the Fuga Prize of the Union of Belgian Composers and the Octave de la musique in the contemporary music category. The Quartet has also collaborated with many composers including Yann Robin, Raphaël Cendo, Franck Bedrossian, Yves Chauris, Ondrëj Adamek, Karol Beffa, Nicolas Bacri, Philippe Boesmans, and others.
As part of the Academy of Contemporary Music of the Aix en Provence Festival 2011, he was invited to create the Trio for voice, viola and piano "Mes Heures de Fièvre" by Karol Beffa. In 2017, he played Rothko Chapel by Morton Feldman at Royaumont Abbey with the ensemble Les Métaboles.
In 2019, Maxime joined BiSS Quartet (boho international strings soloists).
As a freelance musician, Maxime Desert collaborates with various orchestras such as the orchestra of La Monnaie in Brussels, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, and is a member and principal violist of Boho Strings and Multilateral ensembles in Paris.
Maxime Desert play a viola of François Lejeune of 1764.