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Jul 13
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Ensemble et Chœur L’Échelle

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The scale is a wonderful tool which has accompanied man throughout the ages.

Indispensable for navigators, who measured his ropes knot by knot, scales are present in every part of the ships which gave birth to the earliest international merchants and economic empires.

The patterns of scales can be seen along mats, sails, hulls and on the piles pushing into the water, and help balance the ballast in the hold of the ships.

So it was that during the Renaissance certain ports in the East and in Asia were called Echelles, before becoming the exotic trading-posts of the Indies.

At the same time, the word scale designates everything which grades, measures, climbs, situates, and gives the possibility of reaching, balancing and progressing : hence Jacob’s ladder, the scale of values, shades of colour and the different musical scales. Still essential to man, scales permit him to organise his place in the biodiversity of his cultural and physical world.

The Ensemble l’Échelle declares itself partisan of certain Renaissance music, for the profoundly humanist ideas which it expresses. The chamber musicians who make it up seek to pool their musical talent in the search for an appropriate historic verisimilitude.

In the polyphony of the 16th century, the laws of counterpoint direct that each voice is of equal importance. On this secure basis, each line evolves according to the opinion and the manner of the others treating the same material. The music comes to life through the exercise of a common approach and the expression of common thought.

The artistes of l’Échelle seek firstly to respect, then go out to meet, and finally to surprise their public. They seek to modify classical concert-giving mode, the better to attract a new regard from a new public by exposing new facets of their chosen repertoire.

Aware of the particular architecture and different acoustics of each performing space, they propose a “made to measure” organisation of that space according to the programme, to give each listener a truly unique experience. And in their desire to surprise that listener, they also propose the juxtaposition of different kinds of performers – circus artists, dancers, comedians, philosophers and poets to share the stage with the musicians as equal partners.

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VENECIA par l’ensemble L’Echelle (CUENCA, Espagne 2012) from classiquenews.com on Vimeo.

Aug 07
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Ens Hemolia

Ensemble Hemiolia

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Ens Hemolia

Based in northern France, Hemiolia Ensemble was created in 2008 by cellist Claire Lamquet. More than a hundred concerts in France and Europe shaped the tone from the set of variable geometry room on historically informed instruments and whose most musicians have studied in both France and Italy.

Lamquet Claire graduated from the Lille National Conservatory, the National Conservatory of Paris and the Bellini Conservatory in Palermo.
She is the founder and artistic director of the Ensemble Hemiolia, with whom she recorded the composer’s work northerner Marie Alexandre Guenin (critically acclaimed recordings: Diapason and 4 5/5 Muse Baroque). She obtained in June 2010 Jacolin-Dufresne Award Fondation de France for this work.
Passionate about chamber music, she released a CD in 2013 dedicated to the work for string trio romantic composer Pierre Crémont (Socadisc Distribution) with Concordia Ensemble and a CD “Handel” with the Ensemble Hemiolia ( NewArts International Distribution).
Claire Lamquet occurs in many concert seasons and festivals in France and abroad (Saintes festival, Toulouse les Orgues Festival, Mozart Festival in Augsburg, Suona Francese Festival, Festival dei Saraceni, Liaisons Musicales festival, Embaroquement Instant festival, festival Ars Terra, International Festival Harpe en Avesnois, Maison de la Radio …).
With the trio Concordia, she was invited for a tour in Russia (September 2014: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rybinsk, Jaroslav) with trios Pierre Crémont. The tour was dubbed an educational project with the Baroque Orchestra of the Moscow Conservatory, which occurred with the trio Concordia in a program of French music after 3 work days around Peter Crémont.
She published an article for the journal eighteenth century (Marie-Alexandre Guenin between Enlightenment and Romanticism – éd.PUF), and collaborated on the book “The Italian violin” (Opera of Dijon, Harmonia Mundi).
Claire Lamquet holds a degree in philosophy. Holder of the State Diploma as arts and winner of the Competition of the Territorial Civil Service, she teaches part-time at the Conservatoire d’Arras.

 

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Oct 07
11
O sidera

Ensemble Irini

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ens irini

Ensemble Irini

Direction : Lila Hajosi
Mezzo-sopranos : Eulalia Fantova et Clémence Faber 
Contraltos : Julie Azoulay, Lauriane Le Prev – Gaudois et Marie Pons
Ténor : Benoît-Joseph Meier
Basses : Guglielmo Buonsanti et Alessandro Ravasio

The Irini ensemble, founded in 2014 by Lila Hajosi, is a polymorphic vocal ensemble favoring a cappella work, resolved and determined to create “links which set free” between temporal and musical areas. Its journey goes from the European Middle Ages to Byzantine music, to contemporary music from the banks of the Fertile Crescent to the court of Bavaria via Constantinople. A laureate of the Cité de la Voix de Vézelay, the ensemble is invited to prestigious festivals such as the Festival de Radio France in Montpellier, Sacred Arts of Perpignan and Evron, Voix et Routes Romanes, Sinfonia en Périgord, and those of the Abbey of Sylvanès and of Mont St Michel. In 2018, its first female trio program “Maria Nostra” gave birth to Irini’s first album recorded at the Cité de la Voix and was awarded a “Choc” by the Classica magazine. In 2018 aswell composer Zad Moultaka created Quel mystère que tu aies un corps for Irini (order of the Festival de Chaillol), and Casus Ade in 2022 Irini is committed to promoting early music and appropriating unfamiliar repertoires that are but little represented. With “O Sidera”, the Irini Ensemble turns toward Christian Mysticism through the figures of the Sibyls, the Cherubim, the Mystery of the Incarnation, around the divine “Great Beyond”, where reason vanishes and where spirit and music take the paths of strangeness and dreams. This mixed vocal quintet program puts the Prophecies of the Sibyls by Roland de Lassus into perspective with extracts from the Byzantine liturgy.

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Jul 20
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en isabella d'este

Ensemble Isabella d’Este

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en isabella d'este

The ensemble Isabella d’Este was founded in 1985 by Ariane Maurette. Then resident in Geneva (CH), it explored at once many repertoires from Baroque and Renaissance and played in many European countries.

The core, composed of recorder and viol players, was enriched according to the occasion by singers, lute and harpsichord players, violinists, harp and italian cornetto players…

Three records were born during the first ten years: « Les Délices (the Delights) », French baroque music (label Nuova Era), « The image of melancholy » English renaissance music (Symphonia) and « Andrea Falconieri, il primo libro di canzone, 1650 » (Symphonia, new edited by Pan Classics and available on internet).

The following years were dedicated to very miscellaneous programs and numerous projects in France, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium. The duet carrying the same name (Ariane Maurette and Caroline Howald) performed also nearly everywhere in Europe.

The ensemble, nowadays under the direction of Caroline Howald, has just recorded (2015) for the label Paraty « Ferveur, Louange et Passion », (Fervour, Praise and Passion) German music of the late seventeenth century.

Whatever the casting of the group or the program, the ensemble Isabella d’Este always puts passion at the centre of its work: a taste for details and precision allows an infinite mutual freedom; the yearning to serve, beyond simple expressivity, the spiritual dimension of the music, eggs on each and every artist to transcend his limits, which creates a real harmony within the ensemble and with the audience.

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Jul 13
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Ensemble Le Piano Ambulant

Ensemble Le Piano Ambulant

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Ensemble Le Piano Ambulant

In 2001, a collective of Lyon musicians that were feeling adventurous founded The Ambulant Piano to play classical music “differently, and in different contexts”.

The musicians seek to shed new light on the classical repertoire by using transcription and by staging their performances. This taste for the off-beat has led them to collaborate with a wide variety of artistic disciplines, leading to a whole new performance frontier, with productions tailor-made for each repertoire.

Thus the company incorporates, depending on the production, live performance, film, theater, shadow puppets… Debussy is combined with video art, Stravinsky with carnival, and Wagner with amplified music.

The Ambulant Piano is a collegiate framework in which each musician participates in the musical arrangements and staging decisions. Each musician contributes an individual sensibility to the different projects.

In addition to performances in traditional concert halls, The Ambulant Piano has strived to go where they are least expected, right from the start. Thanks to their flexible productions, which are technically independent from one another, the company dares to go where no other has gone before.

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Jan 21
2
EnsLes Meslanges

Ensemble Les Meslanges

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EnsLes Meslanges

Ensemble Les Meslanges, Thomas Van Essen and Volny Hostiou musical directors

  • François Ménissier, grand orgue
  • Cécile Dalmon, sexta pars
  • Esther Labourdette, cantus
  • Raphael Mas, quinta pars, cantus
  • Damien Rivière, tenor
  • Vincent Lièvre-Picard, tenor, contra
  • Thomas Van Essen, bassus, tenor
  • Florent Baffi, bassus
  • Eva Godard, Sarah Dubus, cornets
  • Claire McIntyre, Abel Rohrbach, Christiane Bopp, Arnaud Brétécher, sacqueboutes
  • Volny Hostiou, serpent, bassus, tenor

 
Les Meslanges an ensemble of instrumental and vocal soloists created by Thomas Van Essen, driven by a passion for the diversity that early music offers. The fundamental aim of the ensemble is to put music into its historical and artistic context, through an exploration of its relationship to the art and litterature of its time. Several forms of concerts are used : « lecture concerts », reading out of texts or literary compositions forging links to the music, and the use of elements of set to draw the audience into the music by de Boesset, Le Camus, Charpentier …
One of the particularities of the ensemble is the alternation between the voices in the quire accompanied by the serpent and organ in the gallery, in the manner music was executed from the 16th to the 18th centuries : Masses, Magnificats, Te Deums… The ensemble collaborates with organists such as François Ménissier and Jean-Luc Ho in programmes featuring organ pieces and faux-bourdon plainsong with serpent. In 2013, Volny Hostiou joined the ensemble as associate director, alongside Thomas Van Essen. From it’s beginings in Normandy, the ensemble has performed thoughout France and has been invited to several prestigious music festivals : Sinfonia en Périgord, International Early Music Festival of Ribeauvillé (twice), Baroque Festival of Pontoise …

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Jul 13
1
Mater Dolorosa©Jean-François Mariotti

Ensemble Mora Vocis

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Mater Dolorosa©Jean-François Mariotti

The singers of Mora Vocis, performing by heart and with flowing movement, captivate each form of architectural heritage. With their whirls of sound, the artists interact with the acoustic characteristics of each venue, drawing the attention of the public to parts of the edifice they often no longer even notice. Each venue, whether it be of historic interest or purely unconventional, becomes an integral part of the journey.

A dash of humour and an unexpected flight of fancy provide the finishing touches to each production.

Somewhat like builder journeymen, Mora Vocis is inspired as much by the physical medium as the beauty of the medieval manuscripts.

Rather than attempting to produce a historical reconstruction, the singers simply share their passion for these musical treasures, from virtuosic neumæ to the complex polyphony of Ars subtilior.

Many a contemporary composer and music maker has been won over by medieval thinking. A poem, canticle or melody from the Middle Ages serves as inspiration for compositions that fit the voices of Mora Vocis like a glove. The singers enjoy interpreting these new scores with the same uncompromising approach they adopt for the early repertoire.

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Mar 07
13
EOC-1-©Blandine-Soulage

Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Bruno Mantovani – direction

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EOC-1-©Blandine-Soulage

Founded in 1989, the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain was one of the first independent French ensembles dedicated to contemporary music. Through its creations and tours in France and abroad, the EOC has taken a special place in the musical landscape.
It is recognised as an essential interpreter of 20th and 21st century music and an important player in musical creation, trusted by composers of all generations. Today, the EOC has over 700 works in its repertoire, including 300 premieres. Constituted as an instrumental ensemble whose musicians can also play the role of soloist, the EOC brings together some fifteen instrumentalists under the artistic and musical direction of Bruno Mantovani.

The Ensemble offers concerts in medium and large formations, promotes the pure instrumental concert but also the mixing of instrumental and electroacoustic sources and calls upon other imaginary worlds (dance, opera, literature, visual arts). Covering more than a hundred years of music, the Ensemble has an international reputation and contributes to the influence of its home region, the Loire, by responding to invitations from major artistic and cultural venues in France and abroad.

In the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the EOC is also committed to mediation and transmission by building training, discovery and creation projects with its local partners. By addressing audiences of all ages and backgrounds, the EOC shares music with as many people as possible and contributes fully to the artistic and cultural life of its region.
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The Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain is subsidised by the Ministry of Culture and Communication
– DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the Département de la Loire and the city of Saint-Étienne. the Loire and the city of Saint-Étienne. It is supported by the SACEM, the SPEDIDAM and the Centre National de la Musique.

Since 2022, the EOC has been in residence at the Opera of the city of Saint-Étienne.

site Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain

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Mar 19
2
Ensemble Près O@Rita Cuggia

Ensemble Près de votre oreille

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Ensemble Près O@Rita Cuggia

In 2017, Robin Pharo creates the ensemble Près de votre Oreille (“Near Your Ear”), an original space of creation and artistic meeting between musicians and artists. Près de votre oreille is an idea that is near and dear to his heart: to involve listeners and spectators as much as possible with the emotional issues of a creation and to bring to the ears of the public an intimate and delicate music that flourishes in works and projects for a small group of artists, from early music to contemporary music, while exploring universes such as songs and choreography.

This project is a continuation of various programs that Robin Pharo has initiated since 2010. In duet with Ronald Martin Alonso, he participates in the production of the show Paroles de violes, dedicated to the viol music written by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, which has been programmed at the Théâtre de L’Epée de Bois, at the Cartoucherie. He plays as a duet with Ronan Khalil with whom he performs at the Handel House Museum in London and at the Jeunes Talents Festival in Paris. Robin Pharo recorded for the label Paraty the disc L’Anonyme Parisien, devoted to the virtuosic pieces composed by Charles Dollé for viola da gamba and basso continuo. In Poland, at the Muzyka W Raju Festival, Robin Pharo created a program entitled Orpheus in the Underworld which combines pieces composed by Marin Marais and tunes from the Opera La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

During the 2017/2018 season, the ensemble Près de votre oreille will perform at the Baroque Festival in Timisoara, in Romania, at the Théâtre Grévin in Paris (Philippe Maillard Production), at the Embaroquement Immédiat Festival, at the Midsummer festival, in Hardelot and at the Nasz Telemann festival in Poland. In June 2018, with the collaboration of the L’Entente Cordiale’s Cultural Center, he will also record for the Paraty label a CD entitled Come Sorrow, dedicated to English Elizabethan music composed by Robert Jones, Tobias Hume and John Dowland, at the Elizabethan Hardelot Theatre. In September 2018, Près de votre oreille will be in residence in the city of Longjumeau for the creation of the piece Le Manuscrit de Voynich, composed for mezzo-soprano and a consort of violas da gamba by the Bulgarian composer Yassen Vodenitcharov. In october 2018, he will present a the Consevatory of Gennevilliers the show named Les Trois Ailes du Papillon (with two dancers and one solo viola da gamba). In 2019, Près de votre oreille will perform at the Opéra de Lille, at the Rencontres Internationales de Musique en Trégor, at the Rencontres Musicales de Bel-Air and at the festival baroque de Tarentaise.

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Jul 13
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Psallentes010708_0673

Ensemble Psallentes

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The ensemble Psallentes was founded by Hendrik Vanden Abeele in 2000. Psallentes’s professional singers research Gregorian chant in various stages of its historical development. The group’s primary focus is Gregorian chant from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Psallentes has recorded the music of Johannes Brassart (2000), Arnold Lantins (2001) and Pierre de la Rue (2002 and 2006, Diapason d’Or). In 2006, the ensemble released three new CDs: a collaboration with the Capilla Flamenca (based on the Marian Music of Obrecht – Musique en Wallonie), a project with the French ensemble Millenarium (Messe des Fous – Ricercar), and finally, the fifteenth century Ghent version of the tenth century Liège service of the Holy Trinity (Ricercar). Previous recordings include a collaboration withMillenarium in 2007, based on the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat (Spain). Another notable album was the 2008 release of Bellum et Pax, in collaboration with Capilla Flamenca.

Psallentes has performed at countless festivals, large and small, in Flanders and across Europe.

The core members of Psallentes are Conor Biggs, Pieter Coene, Paul Schils, Philippe Souvagie and Hendrik Vanden Abeele. Director Hendrik Vanden Abeele is pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Leiden. He is also researching Gregorian chant in the Southern Netherlands from 1250 to 1550.

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