Ensemble Amarillis HANDEL Melodies in Mind

                                                        SUITES & TRIO SONATAS

Violaine Cochard / Édouard Ferlet PLUCKED 'N DANCE

A journey through countries, periods and styles on the theme of dance. The themes and melodies are borrowed from Spanish, Turkish, Russian, Italian, English, Hungarian and French composers, inspired by folk music and dances.  

Édouard Ferlet has used this music to compose new pieces, arranged for harpsichord and piano.There are no direct quotations here, but a thread which is woven between these well-known melodies and a new musical vocabulary. 

In each piece Violaine Cochard and Edouard Ferlet improvise freely, each with their individual ‘temperament’ and sensibility. They work on sonority, texture, the exploration of sound palettes, spatialisation, phrasing, distillation. The two artists seek to develop sonic possibilities, articulations, playing techniques and interaction between their musical personalities. A special feature is their work on pulse and tempo, with compound metres linked with the rhythms of folksongs and dances, which are often in compound time. 

Each piece is underpinned by an individual dramaturgy; the melodies are immediately appealing because they remind us of something while surprising us with jazz and contemporary arrangements.

Violaine Cochard DUPHLY

My starting point for this programme was nine of my favourite pieces by Jacques Duphly. Why him? First of all because he writes such lovely tunes, starting with the Allemande which begins his First Book. There are also pieces like Les Grâces, of infinite beauty, the Rondeau in D minor, infused with a gentle melancholy, and La Boucon, with its almost romantic surges of feeling. Alongside that tenderness, Duphly is also capable of unleashing tumultuous power, as in Médée, for example. This selection paints the portrait of a composer who was heir to a French art of harpsichord-playing, the heir of Couperin and Rameau. That is why there are no pieces from the more Italianate Second Book, or from the more gallant Fourth Book, which prefigures the fortepiano.

There are already several complete recordings of Duphly’s works. I wanted to do something different, to record only the pieces which move me, my particular favourites. Although it is possible to listen to the pieces singly, of course, I imagined them as a continuous whole.

I conceived it as a concert programme, an exploration of 18th-century French harpsichord music, a dialogue between Duphly and some of hiscontemporaries who share aspects of his sound-world. I thought it would be interesting to contrast Duphly, who devoted his whole life solely to the harpsichord, with composers who had other interests, such as Royer, who wrote several operas, Forqueray, who also played the viol, and the organists Dandrieu and Balbastre. (Violaine Cochard)

Ensemble Amarillis / Héloïse Gaillard / Violaine Cochard BACH - TELEMANN Effervescence Concertante

The ensemble Amarillis is a baroque ensemble with variable geometry, laureate of three international first prizes and distinguished by the 'Révélations classiques de l'ADAMI'. Amarillis collaborates regularly with the best singers of its generation and unites, in the same chamber music spirit, talented and confirmed instrumentalists. Amarillis performs regularly on the best stages around the world, with recent and upcoming concerts in the United States, Ukraine, and France. Releasing its 17th album 'Bach, Telemann: Effervescence Concertante' date in March 2017, the ensemble's discographie continues to receive glowing reviews from the international press.

Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach, friends in both heart and mind, liked to transgress established rules and explore, each in his own way, the forms and styles of the Baroque era. Hence our desire to bring them together in this programme without, of course, setting one against the other in any way!

Sonya Yoncheva / Karine Deshayes / Ensemble Amarillis PERGOLESI Stabat Mater

A rapidly rising star on today’s opera scene, Sonya Yoncheva appears in this album alongside ‘Lyric Artist of the Year’ winner Karine Deshayes in a masterwork of the sacred music repertoire; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Yoncheva has performed on various stages worldwide, most recently in France where she astonished the audience with her performance in both Verdi's La Traviata & Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, and in Montpellier where she sang at the Radio France International Music Festival. ""Her voice is gorgeous to listen to. It is always used with penetrating intelligence and supple musicality."" (The Times) This recording also features the Ensemble Amarillis on period instruments. Founded in 1994, the Ensemble Amarillis is one of Europe’s most original Baroque ensembles. “The Ensemble Amarillis responds with mercurial temperaments, from sublimely intimate to brazenly flamboyant. (BBC Music Magazine).

“Sonya Yoncheva brings to her lines a fragile sensitivity that astonished me, given the power of her voice…the Ensemble Amarillis plays with great charm. To accompany Pergolesi it has dug up little-known chamber works by Francesco Mancini and Francesco Durante. Héloïse Gaillard, a recorder star in her own right, leads fizzy fioritura in the Mancini as boldly as she does strict counterpoint in the Durante” (BBC Music Magazine, February 2017)

“Mancini’s Sonata in G minor, really a recorder concerto in all but name, is played with sensitive shaping and agility by Héloïse Gaillard, and Durante’s Concerto grosso in F minor shows Ensemble Amarillis on compelling form” (Gramophone Magazine, January 2017)

“Deshayes may have vibrato rather wider than standard period-instrument issue but her ornaments and sense of style are impeccable. Yoncheva, a rising star at Covent Garden and elsewhere, is even more impressive. Her honeyed soprano timbre is beautifully tuned and focused.” (The Times, 18th November 2016)

Stephanie D'Oustrac / Amarillis / Héloïse Gaillard / Violaine Cochard FERVEUR & EXTASE

Stéphanie d'Oustrac (born 1974 in Rennes) in is a French mezzo-soprano. Before she had even won a prize a the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Lyon, William Christie offered her the leading role - Medea - in ‘Lully's Thésée’, at the Académie d'Ambronay in 1998. Her carrier leads her to the Opéra Bastille were she performs ‘Carmen, Bizet’. In 2012, Stéphanie d’Oustrac sung in ‘Roméo & Juliette, Berlioz’ at the Opéra Bastille.Her talent leads her to many great mezzo roles of baroque and classical opera. She also worked with great directors such Laurent Pelly , Robert Carsen , Vincent Vittoz , and famous conductors as Myung Wung Chung, John Eliot Gardiner and René Jacobs.

raised for her sensitivity as a musician and for her talents as a virtuoso, Héloïse Gaillard soon made a name for herself as a soloist. She plays with several excellent ensembles: first oboe with Le Concert Spirituel (Hervé Niquet), first recorder with Les Talens Lyriques (Christophe Rousset), recorder and oboe with Le Concert d'Astrée (Emmanuelle Haïm), as well as regular appearances with Les Arts florissants (William Christie).

Héloïse Gaillard studied at the Conservatoire (CNR) in Tours, where she was awarded first prizes for recorder and modern oboe, before going on to the Rotterdam academy, where she gained her soloist's diploma (recorder) with distinction, the Lemmensinstitut in Louvain, where she obtained a first-prize with distinction, and the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM), where she was awarded her higher diploma (Baroque oboe). She has worked with Jean-Pierre Nicolas, Han Tol, Paul Dombrecht and Marcel Ponseele. And she also has a degree in musicology from the Sorbonne and was awarded in 2005 the Certificate d'Aptitude to be a director of an early music department. She teaches baroque oboe at the Aix en Provence academy in the baroque department since 2009.
Baroque music is a passion in which she indulges above all as a member of Amarillis, with which she performs the solo recorder and oboe repertoires, as well as chamber works. The international press has praised the precision, dynamism and subtlety of her playing. France Musiques, the BBC and Mezzo have broadcast several of her concerts.
Héloïse Gaillard appears as a soloist or with orchestras in France and other countries: in Paris (Salle Gaveau, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Cité de la musique), Metz (Arsenal), Nantes (Palais des Congrès), at numerous festivals (including Folle journée in Nantes, Sablé-sur-Sarthe, Beaune and Ambronay...), London (Barbican), Madrid, Seville, Granada, Amsterdam (Opera House, Concertgebouw), Dresden and Leipzig (Opera), Berlin (Philharmonic hall), Stockholm (Konzerthuis), Boston, New York (Lincoln Center), Latin America, Russia, India, China, Japan...