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| Thierry Escaich and Sequenza 9.3 |
 To live the adventure of contemporary artistic in its diversity such is the agenda of this ensemble that is still young but already recognized for the virtuosity of its achievements, its high standards and taste for risk-taking.
The singers who make it up - in a variable geometry - are professional soloists. If their artistic course crosses the lyric scene, the baroque music or contemporary, the theatre and the dance, all chose to serve and share with passion a large panorama of the polyphonic vocal art of today. Vocal quality and the artistic dimension of each one of them, the performance of precision which they carry out under the demanding and generous conductor of Catherine Simonpietri, their faithful engagement within Sequenza 9.3 contributed to give to performances of this unit the relief, the smoothness who appealed many composers such as Edith Canat de Chizy, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Fénelon, Fred Frith, György Kurtag... Sequenza 9.3’s artistic agenda focuses on four main lines:
The 20th century leaves an image of a troubled period when everything was simultaneously coming apart and reconstructing itself. At the time, some creators were breaking more or less deliberately with the historical perspective of continuity. It was in this atmosphere of effervescence and conflicts that the quasi-totality of the 20th-century culture and art were built. This frenzy has often left numerous works only the short-lived opportunity to be premiered, as if that sole first performance might justify the fact that they had been composed. It is for that reason that Sequenza 9.3 chose to develop work that attempts to give an account of the intense creation policy on the part of the major vocal ensembles of that period (French Radio, Marcel Couraud, Groupe Vocal de France…) which Sequenza 9.3 rediscover, reintroduce and record. Dialogue and creation with today’s composers It is not enough to premiere or revive a composer’s work in is presence, to know his language and thinking. That is why, Sequenza 9.3 began working with composers since several years which enabled the group to understand his universe and aesthetic more thoroughly (Thierry Escaich,. Edith Canat de Chizy, etc.) Exploration of vocal writing of organists Sequenza 9.3 is particularly interested in those musicians who are at the same time organists, improvisers, composers and teachers. Through their mastery of the organ and its vast possibilities, they have left –and are still leaving- works whose richness of writing uses the instrument’s entire specificity: registration, improvisation, contrapuntal and rhythmic complexities, the wealth of harmonic colours… Sequenza 9.3 thus orders works for a cappella with various organists heirs to the great french tradition : Thierry Escaich, Valéry Aubertin, Eric Lebrun, Pierre-Adrien Charpy, Vincent Paulet, Naji Hakim... An opening to different expressions of live entertainement Sequenza 93 seeks to cross different arts, cultures and approaches. It profits from these encounters through mixtures of musical genres and the ensuing reciprocal enrichments to broaden its artistic and creative horizons. The ensemble has already collaborated with cinema (Noémie Lvovsky’s Les Sentiments), jazz (Denis Badaud, Laurent Cugny), rock (Fred Frith), flamenco (Enrique Morente), contemporary opera (Marc-Olivier Dupin) and dance (Blanca Li)  ©Willy Vainqueur Born in 1969, she obtained her vocational certificate in musical training at the age of 20. Fascinated by choral conducting, she studied with Pierre Cao at the Royal Conservatory of Luxembourg where she earned a first prize in choral conducting, then at the International Center for Choral Music in Namur (Belgium) from which she graduated with a unanimous first prize. In France, she earned a vocational training certificate in choral conducting whislt continuing to do advanced study with Frieder Bernius, director of the Stuttgart Kammerchor and Barockorchester. She also participated in numerous conducting master classes with John Poole, Erick Ericsson, Hans Michael Beuerle and Michel Corboz. She has directed numerous productions with the Paris Conservatoire, including Bach Cantatas, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Stravinsky’s Noces. Passionately interested in contemporary artistic creation, in 1998 she founded Sequenza 9.3 vocal ensemble. She is currently a professor of choral conducting at the National Conservatory of Aubervilliers-La Courneuve as well as at the Paris Conservatoire. Since 2006, she is director of collection at Billaudot Editions "I was pleased to work with Catherine Simonpietri at the time of the French creation of my work" Messages " for orchestra, performed by Sequenza 9.3 and the National Orchestra of Ile-de-France in October 2000. I could note and appreciate on this occasion the precision and the artistic requirement of his work with the singers of Sequenza 9.3. Thank you! " György KURTAG "I know Catherine Simonpietri since his first steps in the way of the direction of choir. During all these years I noted and assessed, on several occasions, his immense technical and musical qualities supported by a great rigour and a savage will. Outstanding musician, it is a chief of choir of very high level which did not finish making speak about it " Pierre CAO "the work of Marc Olivier Dupin is very been useful by excellent young people singers and a choir which deserve to be clarified... the result is artistically excellent... the setting in scene is effective, skilful, touching, the singers, sublimes in their body life and admirably made safe by the gestic hyper-precise one of a young women director, Catherine Simonpietri..." Hélène JARRY Discographie Jehan Alain retrouvé Double SACD, février 2005 Abeille Musique, label Sisyphe 4 Diapason d’Or - Choc Monde de la Musique - 9 de Répertoire Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2005 (meilleur projet artistique) Exultet, de Thierry Escaich Universal / Label Accord, CD 476 9074, mars 2006 10 de Répertoire – **** Le Monde de la Musique – 4 Diapasons – Prix de l’Académie du disque lyrique Jeune France : O. Messiaen, D. Lesur, A. Jolivet Label Alpha, à paraître Printemps 2007 Contacts www.sequenza93.org |