News

2020 : Good work !

 

 
If we read his vintage as a fraction, this new year seems to self-award an excellent note, promising, certainly, but delivered perhaps prematurely, since not a line of the duty to be returned by December 31, 2020 is not yet written. So let us wait, before awarding her this satisfaction, for her to live up to the hopes raised than her classmates, the Previous Years, who were after all largely not-so-good than we though at the beginning.
If I interpret it as a time indication, I am forced to start the year with one finger on my nose, which is not very practical - you will agree - to get back to work. In fact, my daughter and her classmates have got into the habit, every time the digital clock marks a "twin" hour (11:11, 13:13, 15:15...) of putting their index finger on their nasal appendage, to the great displeasure of their teacher, and whatever the subject in class. For some years now, I have contracted this pernicious mania, which I indulge in as soon as I notice that it is 09h09, 17h17 or, more dangerously, 20h20 or 21h21., the times when baroque music concerts are usually held...
With my colleagues from Faenza, we have never yet indulged in this ritual on stage where, fortunately, we rarely get to watch the time. The year 2019, however, would have provided quite a few opportunities, since, with Faenza, have faced the public's gaze more than 70 times between 8 and 10 pm. From the "L'arsenal de Metz" to "le Chateau d'Eu" via"Le Théâtre de Valence", from the Hardelot Festival to the Ribeauvillé Festival via the Mont-Blanc Festival, from Dubai to Rome via Timisoara, from the "Château de Versailles" to the Auditorium of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, from the Péniche Adélaïde sailing on the canals of the "Grand Est" to the Church of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, from the "Aubrac" to the "Charolais", from the time of Polichinelle to Charles Dassoucy, I swear that no spectator can boast of having surprised us in 2019 with his finger on the nose.
2020 still evokes, multiplied by two, this marvellous "life 2.0" that the media complacently present to us. In this increased universe, we would therefore have, in addition, in 2020, the opportunity to double ourselves: 2.0 x 2? Is this desirable, given the damage that our way of life - even when it remains modest and frugal - causes to the eco-systems and in view of the dangers that it poses not only to our future and that of our descendants, but also to our very present?
 
2020, in any case, has an undeniable graphic appeal for me. This harmonious succession of twos and zeros reminds me of two reptiles proudly standing on their belly (assuming they have one) alternating with two eggs also standing, ready for action (assuming one egg can act).

The snakes bring me back, as on January 1, 2019, to the theme of nature, the one that disappears before our eyes in the hecatomb of the living that none of our good resolutions at the beginning of the year is capable of stopping. While the marvellous species that fed our childhood mythologies (rhinoceros, koalas, orangutans, giraffes) are disappearing at an ever-increasing - frightening - rate, more modest animals, less spectacular but just as necessary for the balance of the biosphere, are falling into silence: batrachians, reptiles, earthworms...
Eggs are for me, sort of, inhabited zeroes. Zeros full of promise. Nothingness full of future. Who was there first, the egg or... the snake? So in 2020, I see two eggs, or maybe two times two eggs. One year, at least, under the sign of the egg, of the zero, of the void. And I'm looking forward to it. The year 2019, with its dozens of concerts, its creations, its recordings, its barge tours and all the logistics that go with it, was so full that it left us... a little empty. If 2020 is less dense, maybe it will fill us up?
 
From a purely mechanical point of view, it is easy to understand that, since our energy resources are not infinite - any more than those of our planet are - two people (i.e. an artistic director and an administrator) cannot indefinitely provide the work of four. To stay with the symbolism of numbers: 2 x 0 = 0. Whether by choice or by force, whether it is at the level of the life of an individual, a company or a planet, at some point you have to consider lifting your foot off the pedestal.
2020 therefore proposes, because of the so particular form of its declination in figures, to multiply the voids, to lengthen the silences, to let time go by, and I want to follow this injunction. I want to listen to what I have to say and let what will probably only need to hatch around spring, or even later still, come to life in the heart of winter. In particular, I feel the dawning of a show that would focus on silence, that precious raw material that researchers tell us is disappearing in the world, and that certain types of music still preciously keep within them as relics of a world where we still knew how to listen.
Listen, even if "l’On n’entend rien dans ce bocage", as Francisco Mañalich sings in one of the songs of our Délire des lyres, a programme with which we will begin this year as a joyful epiphany, since the Magi from Éditions de l'Hortus will bring us the long-awaited recording of this extraordinary programme where, once again, two of us do the work of four. So come and meet us this Monday, January 6 in Ivry-sur-Seine, where we will have the pleasure of wishing you in person an excellent year 2020!

 
Cotignac, le 1er janvier 2020.
 

Find Dassoucy in Toulouse on January 24!

Les Aventures burlesques de Monsieur Dassoucy, in Toulouse on January 24.

Hôtel d'Assézat - 8:30 p.m. Free admission, limited seating available !

News from February !

Finally, we are pleased to present the long awaited disc "Le Délire des lyres" to the Éditions de l'Hortus whose official release will take place on February 21.

Come in large numbers to the concert on Thursday, March 5 at 8:30 p.m. at the Chapelle de Jésus l'enfant, 29 rue Las Cases - 75007 Paris. (Métros Invalide, Assemblée Nationale, Solférino, Varenne)

Free participation. Reservations recommended: contact@faenza.fr
The concert will be followed by a cocktail which we will have the pleasure of sharing with you.

March 2020: 3 meetings in Paris

Thursday March 5 - 8:30 p.m. - Paris 7
--
Finally, we are pleased to present the disc of "Le Délire des lyres" with Marco Horvat and Francisco Mañalich, the official release of which will take place on February 21 at Hortus Editions.

Chapelle de l'enfant Jésus, 29 rue Las Cases - 75007 Paris.
Métros Invalid, National Assembly, Solférino, Varenne.

We are playing in paris !

Discover Marco and Clélia Horvat in a wonderful father and daughter recital:

The Baroque explained to my father

Sunday, December 16, 2018 at 4 pm

aboard the Adélaïde Péniche, 46 quai de la Loire, 75019 Paris

recommended booking: gauge of 80 seats on board the houseboat
information and reservations: contact@faenza.fr / 06 67 94 52 36
free entry price

 

"Thank you, dear public, without you, the show could not go on"

Our tour of "Polichinelle et Orphée aux Enfers" continues this week with three performances in Valence, after eleven performances in Metz, Eu, Valenciennes and Fourmies. I wanted to thank already the JMFrance, who organized part of the tour, our artists, our technician and our administrator but also and especially the children who, in this show, constitute the fourth character of our fable. Here, students of the "ULIS" Moulins-lès-Metz have made a beautiful gift by commenting the show by their so expressive drawings.

new record : Les Airs à quatre parties du Sieur Dassoucy

I am very proud to be able to announce the official release, at Hortus Publishing, of our CD  « Les Airs à quatre parties du Sieur Dassoucy ».

Faenza in Dubaï !

What a pleasure to discover this beautiful country, and especially these children so attentive and curious !
Perhaps we will find - in a few years - accomplished musicians who have discovered with us, in Dubai, baroque music ...

 

Dassoucy participe aussi !

Dear friends,

Over a week ago, Faenza launched a campaign of participatory financing for the realization of a CD, dedicated to the Airs à 4 parties of Charles Dassoucy. We had never up until now called on this way of financing, but because this project has just knocked on our door unexpectedly, we need your help to bring it to fruition.

The Frog’s Glance

 

October, already, and I am having trouble writing the ubiquitous September newsletter - those which nearly invariably start with « It’s the end of summer vacation! » and list the fantastic activities and proposals of a group, or an enterprise, or a store, or a theater which will make you turn out in numbers…

Polichinelle dans le Grand Est !

Monseigneur the Public,


Here I am, back in the Grand Est for nine performances – four of them are for all ages!

I will have the pleasure seeing you:

- at the Espace Georges Sadoul (Saint-Dié-des-Vosges), Wednesday, April 11th at 3 PM
- at the Centre culturel de Nouzonville, Friday, April 13th at 2PM and 8:30 PM
- at the MCL de Gerardmer, Friday, April 20th at 8:30 PM


For more information about the show, click here.

Faenza wishes you a very Happy New Year 2028!

 

Fragility…

Every year, just when it’s time to optimistically express to you my wishes of happiness, health and prosperity, I feel ambivalent.

In reality, although I try to force myself, although I try to have a better attitude, I am not an optimist.

Hang on, this is going to be a little long…

A stationary voyage

I like this oxymoron. I had seen it in an article on cabinets of curiosities, at a time when we were working on an eponymous show. It came up again in communications about our program, the Jeu des amants (The Game of Lovers), an interactive evening where we have teams of players travel, following an imaginary map of the Kingdom of Love.

Polichinelle and Orpheus in Hell

After having triumphed in Avignon, Polichinelle sets off for the Ambronay Festival to give a performance for all ages on Sunday, September 25th at 3 PM, and then two school performances on Monday, September 26th. The next occasions to see Polichinelle, Orpheus and Eurydice will only be possible next February and April, so it’s up to you!

Polichinelle vs. Orfeo in the Ring at Avignon

My Lord Spectator,

Since the new President of the Republic, the former President of the Republic, the new Prime Minister, the former Prime Minister, the Opposition, the Majority, the Right, the Left, the Extreme Right, the Extreme Left, the System, the Anti-System, all the new, the former and future Mighty of the Universe put it into their heads to bark speeches at you on so many different subjects, don't think badly of me, Polichinelle, the new Self-Proclaimed Artistic Director of the ensemble Faenza, if I come piss on the wall of your attention and inundate it with a flood of words!
 

Faenza on Radio France

If you missed the excellent emission on Sunday of Karine Le Bail, "Un air d'histoire," with Anne-Madeleine Goulet and the Faenza ensemble, you can listen to the podcast here. You will hear about the fascinating Princess des Ursins and you will discover some rare works by the Roman composer, Ercole Bernabei, which we certainly count on recording for agOgique one of these days. Happy listening!

 

THE BIRTH OF POLICHINELLE

The show, "Polichinelle défie les Dieux" (Polichinelle defies the Gods) has now seen the day after intense work. We have just given five premieres before very varied audiences: high-school students, elementary-school students, and adults. Each time the success was... different, never in fact the same, since the show depends on the audience above all, the fourth actor of our comedy of signboards. We have indeed found again, in adapting it to our troubled epoch, the joyful and transgressive spirit of the actors and marionettists of the annual fair theaters.

Ave Cezary !

Early music... for dummies?

It's a pleasure every time I run into Cezary Zych who, through hell or high water, organizes a number of musical events every year in Poland (you know, that little European country where women are now demonstrating so that their right to abortion is not taken away from them...). Always a tease, he told me he reads with pleasure my "political" stands in certain Faenza newsletters.

A new creation concocted with the richest tastes

It was with pleasure that we premiered our new production, « Les 4 saveurs de l’amour » ("The Four Savors of Love"), an aperitif-Baroque concert full of humor and uncommmon music, on September 11th at the Abbey of Moyenmoutier (in the context of Faenza's residence at the Festival des Abbayes en Lorraine) and September 16th at the Château de Lassay.

With:
Olga Pitarch: vocals, castanets
Marco Horvat: vocals, theorbo, Baroque guitar
Francisco Mañalich: vocals, bass viol, Baroque guitar

In May, make the music that you like!

This month, the Pays des Abbayes in Lorraine welcomed us in the Vosges, in the framework of a three-year residence, started this year with enormous pleasure and enthusiasm. In the exquisite little church of Saint Jean d'Ormont, to which its municipality very kindly trusted us with the keys (even going so far as to stop the traffic so we would have peace and quiet for five days!), we recorded a colorful program: Le Délire des Lyres, with Francisco Mañalich and Marco Horvat, who both sung, while accompanying themselves on a great number of instruments.

Résidence, résidence...

A beautiful success for this last year of Faenza's residence at the Université Reims Champagne Ardenne.

Le Carnaval - a university residence creation

Faenza's two-year residency at the Université Reims Champagne Ardenne is now coming to an end!

Some press reviews of "Madrigaux et Sonates de Giovanni Zamboni:"

"The instrumental ensemble indulges itself in a variety of timbres rarely combined: archlute, Baroque guitar, triple harp, and harpsichord, as well as a bass viol. In the guise of interludes, madrigal transcriptions are intermingled with sonatas remarkably interpreted by Marco Horvat on the archlute. The vocal quartet are up-to-date aesthetically, placing these late matrigals in the dawn of nascent Classicism, with a deliberately enormous palette of color."

Lets open and get some air !

New Year Wishes from the Artistic Director...


It was already difficult last year to formulate my New Year wishes: I have even more difficulty doing it this year. 2015 was full of pain, and in this month of January, just beginning, I can only offer you a superficial optimism. I have to try then something else for 2016.

To be perfectly honest in formulating these wishes, it seems to me that I must come from the profound hopelessness which forms me more than it takes hold of me, and from the implacable observation that the human being is certainly the most destructive animal living on this planet, capable – we know it – of the worst abominations: violence, aggression, flattery, dishonesty, ugliness, thoughtlessness, rigidity, blindness, perversity, pettiness...

The list is long, interminable in truth, and each person can add his own nightmares to it, but I am persuaded that all these aberrations can be summed up in one: stupidity. This strange quality particular to man–as much as the laugh which does not lack an odd relationship with it – we all have it in us, and it depends neither on our intelligence nor on our cultural level: it is elsewhere that its origin has to be searched. So much "elsewhere" besides, that it is not easy to define it and yet its deepened study would probably be the science which would advance most the understanding of human nature.

A New Creation - Le Délire des Lyres

Discover our last creation of 2015, featuring Marco Horvat and Francisco Mañalich...


"Le Délire des Lyres," a quartet for two, made possible thanks to the talent of our artists who have achieved the status of singers... and of instrumentalists (viola da gamba, Baroque guitar, theorbo, lira)!

Une rentrée Salon de musique

"The Music Salon" still holds the place of honor in Faenza's programming this fall.


Pick "The Lover," and you will succumb to his charms;
Pick "The Emperor" and you will discover his tragic destiny;
Pick "The World" and you will be present at its creation...
 

 

22 cards, 22 figures, 11 drawings at each performance, this is the theme of the evenings, all unique: instrumental pieces, songs and poems compose a Baroque universe for each of the Major Arcana of the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck.
Faenza, inspired by the conviviality of the ruelles in the 17th century, recently gave performances of this program, wrapped in the intimacy of a music salon:

From September 9th to the 12th in the Théâtre d’Auxerre, France
September 19th, in the Château du grand jardin in Joinville, France
September 25th, in the Festival baroque de Pontoise at the Musée national de la Renaissance, Château d’Ecouen, France
 

Reviews of "Amorosa Fenice", songs by Giulio San Pietro de’ Negri ensemble Faenza, agOgique (AGO 018, 1 CD, 2014)

The ensemble Faenza imposes itself immediately with its precise diction, its volubility, its vocal suppleness, the balance between voice and accompaniment, its sense of the dialogue between the singers and the instruments; also by the virtuosity of the instruments and, in a general manner, by its care in the precise figurative musical translation of the images and the sentiments of the text.

Concerts de février

After an impressive performance of "Le Jeu des Amants" before a public composed exclusively of couples in love (the initiative of the alumni network of the University of Reims), Faenza will be at the Nuits Baroques du Touquet this week with two concerts:
 
- Saturday the 21st at 4PM, "Le Chant des Charlatans"
- Sunday the 22nd at 3:30 PM, "Le Salon de Musique ou Le Baroque à la Carte"
 
Still in the framework of Faenza's artistic residence at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, the ensemble will present a new rendition of "Jeu des Amants,"  featuring Olga Pitarch, in the Musée Saint-Loup, a very beautiful museum, on Tuesday the 13th at 3PM.

This New Year, wishes are difficult to put into words

I had planned tonight to wish you a Happy New Year on the part of Faenza. But can one still speak of a "happy new year" when nearby in Paris, three men have murdered 17 people, being sure of their right to? Can we do anything else but wish that the rest of the year be... better? Around me, people are getting discouraged: what sense can our activities as musicians, researchers, teachers have alongside this reality? Reality - enormous, omnipresent, and planetary - without common measure with the microcosm that forms our community of the privileged among the privileged.

FAENZA on tour in the Ardennes region of France, performing "Songs of Charlatans," which features music from Lully's "Carnaval."

After a series of four concerts of « Jeu des Amants » in the context of Faenza's residence at the University of Reims in France (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne), the ensemble went on tour in the French and Belgian Ardennes  recently with a new production, « Songs of Charlatans ».
 
This program, performed by four singers and two instrumentalists, presents a selection of the best entertainment imagined by Molière and put to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Faenza in residence at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne : four concerts to end the semester

At the beginning of December 2014, Faenza gave four concerts for students of  « Le Jeu des Amants »  in Reims and Troyes, to mark the end of the first of four semesters of its residence at the URCA, the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne.

Le 1er décembre à Troyes, les 3, 4 et 5 décembre à Reims.

Since last September, Faenza has been in artistic residence at the UFR of Letters and Human Sciences which will last until July 2016: two years of collaboration with the teachers and students of Letters, History and Musicology, in Reims and Troyes. Fifty hours of courses - theoretical and practical - were given this semester by Marco Horvat in musicology, letters and history.

Quatre concerts seront donnés à destination des étudiants, avec une ouverture au public dans la limite des places disponibles et sur inscription obligatoire à cette adresse ou en suivant ce lien.

Performers
Olga Pitarch: vocals
Marco Horvat: vocals, theorbo and Baroque guitar

In the following semester, the scope of the residence will be enlarged with a new series of courses and workshops, during which the students will be encouraged to participate in the concert/cabaret "Le Bel Air" which will also be performed in Troyes and in Reims..

Faenza's new CD: Amorosa Fenice (Amorous Phoenix)

« Very quickly one is struck by the inventive richness of this largely unknown composer, which makes him the equal of the greatest amid his contemporaries. Most of the selected airs are taken from the two known volumes of Grazie ed affetti (1613-14). In all this music, there is something vernal, lively, and bounding with energy. Even when these airs do not exude joy, the vibrancy is still present. The diversity in the association of voices and instruments assures a constant variety from one track to another of this disc; each new listening is a source of delight. »

Laurent Bury, Music-opera.com, October 6, 2014

« The ensemble Faenza imposes itself right away with its precise diction, its volubility, its vocal suppleness, the balance between voice and accompaniment, its sense of the dialogue between the singers and the instruments; also by the virtuosity of the instruments (the recorder...) and, in a general manner, its care in the precise figurative musical translation of the images and the sentiments of the text. »

Édith Weber, L'Education Musicale, October 2014 

Where to purchase the CD:

Find out more about Amorosa Fenice

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