About
SEILLANS
8 – 18 August 2012
Welcome back to Musique Cordiale. It’s our 8th year of music-making with friends and colleagues from all over the world in our idyllic spot. I am sure you will enjoy the terrific programme and exciting concerts we have in store.
2012 offers new repertoire, lovely singers and lots of great players. There will be evening & lunch-time concerts, chamber music, orchestral performances and jazz in the first week, with the Ensemble Cordial Choir joining in week two and coming together with the orchestra for the sublime Mozart Mass in C minor and the Poulenc Gloria.
The a cappella repertoire is nearly decided and our gifted and brilliant friend Tom Seligman is working with me on this; he is returning to conduct the orchestral and choral concerts this year. We have decided on the Allegri Miserere and Morten Lauridsen Madrigali.
In the beginning, the core of Musique Cordiale was the choir, to which we added an orchestra made up mostly of accomplished friends (and their friends)whom I managed to inveigle into coming to the Var for French vin, cuisine & soleil – in return for playing beautifully! As many of you will have noticed, as the festival has grown in scale and ambition, this has changed somewhat. However, the original formula, featuring the choir accompanied by my ‘playing’ friends, remains as important as ever. It is also the key to the ‘grand denouement’ at the end of the festival, when all the hard work comes together in the final concerts. And during this time, new friendships are made, paving the way to future happy festivals.
In an uncertain economic climate, an issue I have to address this year is the size of the festival and, as important, how to retain its intimate quality while it takes on a force of its own. Believing that ‘change is the great survivor’, we have to think creatively about how to achieve this balance without upsetting the unique and friendly atmosphere we always aim for. In 2012, we have decided not to stage an opera. There will also be a slightly smaller Musique Cordiale orchestra whose fine players can retain and enhance the high quality we have become accustomed to. And, pursuing the idea of inspiring singing from old friends, Andrew Staples will return to Musique Cordiale to sing Britten’s Les Illuminations.
This year’s festival does also feature exciting new initiatives. Andrew Staples is assembling a new ‘Consort Musical’ of merry (mostly) men to perform a glorious repertoire of Renaissance polyphony, madrigals, part songs and close harmony. Truly a week of vocal excellence to look forward to! And… at the inspiration of Lisa Gross, our Swiss oboist, a group of outstanding students from the Zurich Hochschule der Kunst are joining us to play solos and chamber music as well as participating in Musique Cordiale throughout the festival: flute, clarinet, bassoon and cello. The cool ‘Christie boys’, who live in Zurich, both talented musicians and who helped me so much last year, return this year. They will play with Michel Tirabosco & Jean Marie Reboul, whose return attracts huge enthusiasm from our Seillans audiences.
With the help of Chris Hoyle, our favourite cellist, we are inviting players from the Royal Northern College of Music, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia. So we will achieve both continuity and change.
Also still evolving and now in its third year is the Academie Cordiale, which will be running during the first week. Our students from the Conservatoire in Nice will return for this unique experience of playing alongside professionals in a festival concert – plus a lunch-time performance in their own right as the culmination of their week of stretching and challenging work.
During the last few festivals, artist Sarah Bryant has been sketching as well as singing. This has prompted us to stage another different kind of new show this year. This will take the form of an exhibition, Scenes from ‘Musique Cordiale’. We are inviting other artists, including Vincent Fournier, Tessa Peskett, Clara Medek and Martin Naumann to show their work too, to be accompanied by a display of selected photographs from past festivals.
