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I Giardini is a collective of inspired and committed artists united around a common sensibility, an unusually strong unity of purpose, and a shared joy in onstage performance. They were nominee for the 2021 Victoires de la musique Classique Award. Giving priority to the musical excellence, the Group’s two co-founders and artistic directors, cellist Pauline Buet and pianist David Violi have made a space for freedom and for the exploration of a unique romantic world, inspired by the past, from Fauré and Bonis to Chausson, Poulenc and Schumann, but also rooted in the present through their collaboration with leading international women composers, such as the American Caroline Shaw and Anglo-French Josephine Stephenson.
Concerts, operatic projects, dance, new forms of language such as Virtual reality… music is first and foremost a constant exchange, to be shared among themselves and with the audience.
Since its foundation, i Giardini has appeared in all major Venues in France (at the Museé d’Orsay, theatre des bouffes du Nord, Auditorium – Orchestre National de Lyon, Arsenal de Metz, theatre du chatelet, le Lieu unique de Nantes, TAP Poitiers, and the opera houses of Lille, Avignon, Montpellier and Bordeaux, etc.) as well as abroad: in Belgium at la Monnaie de mount, Canada (salle Borgie, festival Classica), China (NCPA Beijing, Forbidden city concert hall, Shanghai oriental art center), Germany (Beethoven fest, Heidelberg Frühling) and Italy (Bologna festival, and the Palazzetto bru Zane in Venice, with which they maintain a steady partnership).
Their recent recordings Nuits with Veronique Genes and Bleu – both for Alpha classics – have been hailed by the critics, with distinctions such as a diapason d’or for 2020, a choc Classica, and a ffff rating on Télérama.
Their new album released by Alpha Classics this fall features a monograph by American composer Caroline Shaw (Pulitzer Prize for Music & multi-Grammy Award winner) including a world premiere, “The wheel”, sponsored by the ensemble with the support of Musica Strasbourg, the Opéra de Montpellier, the Lieu Unique de Nantes, the Festival Musique(s) Rive Gauche Paris and the Face Foundation of New York.
The Verbier Festival Academy’s Atelier Lyrique is unique among voice programmes in Europe. Singers are accepted for either or both of the Atelier’s Opera and/or Song Programmes. The Atelier Lyrique’s alumni are among some of today’s most sought after young performers. During their summer of study, the Atelier Lyrique singers are often called upon to form choirs for Verbier Festival Mainstage opera presentations.
Driven by a common passion for the intangibility of music, Laetitia Amblard, Constant Clermont, Pierre-Pascal Jean and Arthur Heuel created Quatuor Mirages in 2020. These four instrumentalists from the Paris Conservatoire study chamber music with François Salque, and have also benefited from coaching from Pierre Fouchenneret (Quatuor Strada) and Pierre Colombet (Quatuor Ébène), Christophe Giovaninetti (Ysaÿe Quartet), Emmanuel Haratyk (Manfred Quartet/Castagneri Quartet), Jean Mouillère (Via Nova Quartet), Jean-Marc Phillips Varjabedian (Trio Wanderer), Michael Hentz, Victor Julien-Laferrière, Hortense Cartier-Bresson, Olivier Charlier, and Marc Coppey. The quartet has taken part in several academies, including the Cordes en Ballade academy organised by the Quatuor Debussy, and the Schiermonnikoog academy in the Netherlands, where they had the opportunity to meet and work with Marc Danel and Gary Hoffman. This summer, the quartet is in residence at Académie D’Aix en Provence in addition to making its first visit to the Verbier Festival.
The Animato Kwartet is a young promising Dutch- and German-based string quartet praised for its passionate, spontaneous playing and its powerful on-stage presence. The quartet has performed in all the major halls in Holland and at international festivals in Brazil, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Norway and Italy. In 2021, is was awarded Third Prize and the Special Jury Prize at the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition. The quartet is also laureate of the Dutch Classical Talent Award 2021/2022 and, in 2017, was the recipient of the prestigious string quartet grant from the Kersjes Foundation. As part of the post-graduate programme of the Dutch String Quartet Academy, the Animato works with Marc Danel and Eberhard Feltz. It also attends sessions by the European Chamber Music Academy, with intensive coaching from Hatto Beyerle and Johannes Meissl, and has worked in masterclasses with Anner Bylsma, Alfred Brendel and Gerhard Schultz.
Geneva’s Académie de l’Opéra opened its doors in 1987 with the aim of promoting and fostering a love of opera. It offers a window opera in a playful and interactive way, incorporating singing, acting, dancing and even set design and costume design for beginners. Classes and workshops are offered to toddlers, teenagers and adults, masterclasses throughout the year or during the summer holidays, shows and concerts for novices as well as for the more experienced, in costume and in front of audiences. The Académie’s teachers are professional artists, graduates and winners of international competitions, speaking French, German, English and Italian. In addition to transmitting their art, they aim to foster a love of languages through the sounds encountered in the various operas. Teaching methods are adapted to the age and background of students.
IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music directed by Frank Madlener, is one of the world’s largest public research centers dedicated to both musical expression and scientific research. This unique location where artistic sensibilities collide with scientific and technological innovation brings together over 160 collaborators.
IRCAM’s three principal activities — creation, research, transmission — are visible in IRCAM’s Parisian concert season, in productions throughout France and abroad, and in two annual rendezvous: ManiFeste that combines an international festival with a multidisciplinary academy and the Vertigo forum that presents technical mutations and their tangible effects on artistic creation.
Founded by Pierre Boulez, IRCAM is associated with the Centre Pompidou, under the tutelage of the French Ministry of Culture. The mixed STMS research lab (Sciences and Technologies for Music and Sound), housed by IRCAM, also benefits from the support of the CNRS and Sorbonne University.
In 2020, IRCAM created Ircam Amplify, a spin-off for the commercialization of the institute’s audio innovations. A true interface between state of the art of audio research and the industrial world on a global scale, Ircam Amplify is a major actor in the sound revolution of the 21st century.
It was during the contemporary music courses at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne that four bachelor students, Naomi Cohen, Camille Thévoz, Alexis Mauritz and Sebastiàn Ramírez met. They quickly developed a great musical complicity and a beautiful friendship and founded the Balsamik Quartet. Coached by their respective teachers, they explore a repertoire ranging from the 19th century to the present day.
La Bulle d’Air est un centre d’éveil et de formation musicale qui propose une approche pédagogique novatrice de la musique, la rendant accessible à tous les enfants, quelques soient leurs compétences. 27 ans d’expérience dans l’enseignement de la musique à Genève La Bulle d’Air a été fondée en 1994 par Martine Pernod, musicienne, psychologue, musicothérapeute et animatrice en éveil musical. Très vite rejointe par une équipe de passionnés, ils ont développé ensemble une approche novatrice de la musique.
Founded on the shores of Lake Geneva in Haute Savoie in 1977, the Théâtre de la Toupine company explores the multiple facets of live performance through its creations and the events. After 21 shows to its credit — from street theatre to object theatre — the company launched its ‘Bestiaire Alpin’ in 2009, the first in its series of ‘ecological ride-theatre with parental propulsion’. The Théâtre de la Toupine is also a creator, designer and artistic programmer of cultural events.
‘Chamber music at the heart of the orchestra … This is by far the best definition of what Appassionato is all about. More than a chamber orchestra, Appassionato is a “chamber musicians orchestra”. The listening skills developed by passionate musicians, with the true idea of playing together in mind, brings a color and energy that helps Appassionato stand out from other orchestras. Playing together is a question that obsesses all conductors as well as all musicians who perform other than as soloists. It is much more than simply putting the notes vertically on top of each other: it is almost the opposite of feeling the horizontality in order to align the verticality. Feeling the lines, the phrases, the movements of the music as a small group, but with many, allows a common breath that helps to fundamentally change the interpretation. A quartet, a trio, but with 40 players, a different listening helped by this reciprocity of the melodic lines, this game of question-answer from one ear to another, a musical ping-pong, concert after concert and recording after recording, this is what makes Appassionato stand out.’
— Mathieu Herzog, Artistic Director