bavouzet was born in lannion, france and grew up in metz. he started his music studies there, encountering such luminaries as iannis xenakis, olivier messiaen, karlheinz stockhausen and pierre boulez. moving to the conservatoire de paris, he studied under pierre sancan, among others. he also had private lessons with georg solti, and in june 1997 was engaged to play béla bartók's piano concerto no. 3 with solti conducting the orchestre de paris in 1998. solti died in september 1997, so they never appeared together in public.