PROGRAMME

LILI BOULANGER (1893 – 1918)
“Reflets”
“Le Retour”

NADIA BOULANGER (1887 – 1979)
Les Heures Claires
No. 1 “ Le Ciel en nuit s’est déplié”
No. 3 “ Vous m’avez dit ”
“J’ai frappé”
“Soleils couchants”
“Un grand sommeil noir”
“Cantique”
“Mon coeur”

ARTISTS

LUCILE RICHARDOT, mezzo-soprano

ANNE DE FORNEL, piano

It was thanks to France Musique that mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot and pianist Anne de Fornel met in 2019. This piano-voice duo, one of the most complicit and enchanting on the French scene, has recently been invited to perform at the Philharmonie de Paris, L’Abbaye de Royaumont, La Passerelle in St Brieuc, Les Estivales du Haut Calavon, the Concertgebouw in Bruges and deSingel in Antwerp. Critically acclaimed, their first recording for harmonia mundi, Les Heures claires, is devoted to the complete melodies of Nadia and Lili Boulanger (3 CDs) with the participation of Stéphane Degout, Raquel Camarinha, Emmanuelle Bertrand and Sarah Nemtanu. Committed to the promotion of women’s musical heritage, the duo has produced several videos for La Boîte à pépites – Elles Women Composers. During the 2023/24 season, they will perform at the Wigmore Hall (London/BBC), the ElbPhilharmonie (Hamburg) and the Philharmonie de Paris in a programme dedicated to English women composers.

LUCILE RICHARDOT

Lucile Richardot has made a name for herself on the baroque, classical and contemporary music scenes with her exceptional voice. She sings regularly with the Correspondances, Pygmalion, Les Arts Florissants ensembles and has performed with a large number of other ensembles including Collegium 1704 (Vaclav Luks), Monteverdi choir & English Baroque Soloists (Sir John Eliot Gardiner), Le Poème Harmonique, Les Paladins, Les Siècles (François-Xavier Roth), Ensemble Intercontemporain, Tafelmusik in Toronto, and in festivals and venues such as the Boston Early Music Festival, Opéra de Rouen, Opéra-Comique and Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. She has also been invited by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, made her debut at the Festival d’Aix in 2018, at Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan the following year. His first solo disc for the harmonia mundi label, Perpetual Night, was a critical and public success (Diapason d’Or, Choc de l’Année, Diamant, German Critics’ Prize and Caecilia Prize) and was followed by Berio To Sing with Les Cris de Paris (Geoffroy Jourdain).

ANNE DE FORNEL

French-American Anne de Fornel combines a brilliant career as a concert pianist and musicologist. She is a graduate of the CNSMD in Lyon (Master’s degree in piano) where she studied with Florent Boffard, of the University of Paris-Sorbonne – Paris IV (Doctorate in Music and Musicology) and of HEC Paris (Master’s degree in “Media, Art and Creation”). She is currently Director of Research at the CNSMD of Lyon. In 2019, she published a book on John Cage (Fayard Editions). In 2021 and 2023, she was invited to perform Pierre Wissmer’s Concertos No. 1 and 2 with the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra. Her recordings (labels Paraty, Klarthe and Éditions Hortus) have been unanimously acclaimed by the critics: Cage Meets Satie: Works for Two Pianos with Jay Gottlieb, Tramages with the Mesostics Ensemble (Martin Matalon, Philippe Hurel, Bernard Cavanna), Vers la Vie Nouvelle (pieces from the Great War), Crossing the Line with the Empreinte Trio (Mel Bonis, Lili Boulanger, Ida Gotkovsky, Graciane Finzi), Nuit Transfigurée (Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Johannes Boris Borowski), and Un Long Voyage (Pierre Wissmer) with the Steuermann Trio. Her repertoire also includes the premiere of several works by Andrea Agostini, William Bolcom, Johannes Boris Borowski, Fabrice Grégorutti and Robert Lemay that have been dedicated to her.

ABBAYE DE ROYAUMONT