The Alia Mens Ensemble features singers and period
instrumentalists led by Olivier Spilmont. The ensemble has performed at
numerous festivals and national concert halls, including Lille Opera,
”Embaroquement immédiat”, Festival de la Chabotterie, the Mont-Blanc
Festival, Midsummer Festival, le Bateau feu-Dunkerque, le
Phénix-Valenciennes, Arras Theater, the ”Musique et Mémoire” Festival,
Teatro de Vicenza, Bozar Brussels, ”Tage alter Musik” Regensburg and
many others.
Since 2012 the Alia Mens Ensemble has dedicated a substantial part of
its activities to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Weimar
cantatas in particular. The ensemble also regularly performs Bach’s
multi-keyboard concertos with harpsichordists Pierre Hantaï, Maude
Gratton and Olivier Spilmont.
The group of Weimar cantatas is exciting on many levels. The purpose Bach
expressed in his Mühlhausen resignation letter – which became a master
beam of the musical edi ce he built throughout his life – is expressed
with an even more seminal vigour, due to the restrictions it suffered
previously. Besides the beauty of the surviving works, which renders the
loss of the missing ones all the more bitter, it is moving to see the
musician engage, with each new piece, in experiments with form, ideas,
and the language for expressing the word of God through the most
sensitive possible texts. The choice of developing themes dear to him
enabled him to affirm and deepen his faith.
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