About the event
On the occasion of the International Women's Day, this concert honors some female composers and musicians who were at the center of the musical life of their time.
In the musical frenzy that characterized the beginning of the 19th century, Paris quickly asserted itself as a true capital of music. Its salons, privileged places for practicing and listening to music, were the cradle of a new musical sensibility, which would later be called romantic and which would revolutionize the musical landscape of the continent in a few years.
These salons were held mainly by literate women where they met with intellectuals, artists, writers, poets, philosophers and musicians. The new district of La Nouvelle Athènes attracted them, especially the salon of Miss Duchesnois - rue de la Tour des Dames - friend of Daniel Steibelt, one of the most famous pianists of the time. One of these rivals was the pianist and composer Hélène de Montgeroult, the first piano teacher at the creation of the Paris Conservatoire in 1795 (in the premises of the present Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique in the 9th arrondissement). A sensitive musician and tireless teacher, her piano writing is distinguished by its profoundly expressive dimension, which finds its true stylistic principle in an imitation of song. We will listen to other women composers such as Hortense de Beauharnais, Sophie Gail present in the salons as well as men such as François-Adrien Boëldieu, Louis-Emmanuel Jadin, Jean-Louis Adam.
The 1806 Erard square piano from "La Nouvelle Athènes" collection, recently restored by master craftsman Christopher Clarke, accompanies this immersion in the poetic and creative atmosphere of a Parisian salon during the First Empire with its multi-colored timbre. The rich program of the concert evokes the variety of the repertoire of choice of the musicians of the early nineteenth century, where the genres of instrumental music, such as sonatas for solo piano or accompanied, blossom quite naturally with those of vocal music, and in particular that of the romance, a prominent form of French music of the time.
Nicolas Bouils studied with Philippe Allain-Dupré before entering the CNSMDP in the class of Jan de Winne and Alexis Kossenko. His passion for the history and the making of his instrument, for the multiplicity and richness of its sonorities, for the research on these flutes, techniques, scores and ancient styles leads him to play many instruments. This multi-faceted approach to playing and research allows him to explore the flute's immense repertoire.
Stéphane Fuget is a keyboardist and conductor. He has had an international career as a conductor in the most prestigious opera houses, working with conductors such as Christophe Rousset, Jean-Christophe Spinosi and Marc Minkovski: Vienna, Amsterdam, Brussels, Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées... He developed at the CRR of Paris a class of vocal conductor and a class of Baroque Opera, unique in France, in which he staged many operas by Monteverdi, Handel, Cavalli, Cesti, Lully, Rossi... He created in 2018 Les Epopées, a company with which he proposes a resolutely new vision in interpretation.
Claire Lefilliâtre is invited by many ensembles. Her knowledge of the baroque repertoire has made her the principal interpreter of the Poème Harmonique productions. Since 1999, her concerts and recordings for the Alpha label - whether of music by Etienne Moulinié, Emilio de Cavalieri, or French romances - with this ensemble have been unanimously acclaimed by the press (Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, Répertoire ...). With Stéphane Fuget, she launched the ensemble Les Epopées and is particularly interested in melody, lied and romance.
Luca Montebugnoli is an Italian pianist and pianofortist. A graduate of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, the CNSMDP and the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and a laureate of the Royaumont Foundation, he is working on a doctorate at the Orpheus Instituut (Ghent) on the practice of piano arranging in the early 19th century. He is a professor of piano and fortepiano at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris and at the Conservatoire Départemental de Bobigny. In 2017, he founded the ensemble Hexameron. He is a founding member of La Nouvelle Athènes.