Ophélie Gaillard offers an eclectic repertoire, ranging from Baroque to contemporary music. She performs as a soloist, with her ensemble Pulcinella, as well as with renowned artists, depending on the works being presented. Highly dedicated to musical transmission, she regularly leads orchestra academies from her cello and shares the stage with prestigious ensembles such as the Swiss Cellists and the Young Talents of the Ponticello-Genève festival. Her varied programs, such as "Napoli!" and "A Night in London", reflect her commitment to bridging different eras and styles.

Ophélie Gaillard An insatiable curiosity, a taste for risk, an immoderate appetite for the whole of the concerted cello repertoire, complete disregard of limits and petty quarrels: those are no doubt the features that have always set this brilliant Franco-Swiss musician apart. Her passion? Working from the sources, inquiring into the text, using her virtuosity to bring out the musical discourse and make the music loved by all.

Kévin Amiel, the rising voice of French opera, confirms his talent with a first album of the highest calibre. Nominated for a ‘Révélations’ award at the Victoires de la musique classique awards in 2020 and an Adami artist, the tenor explores the great arias of the 19th century, a period when opera celebrated extraordinary destinies, from the stage to backstage, with Verdi, Gounod, Puccini and Delibes.Combining a luminous timbre, virtuosity and dramatic talent, Kévin Amiel embodies this demanding art, forged by passion, patience and hard work. With a nod to Pavarotti, arguably the greatest and most popular of opera singers, he slips a few traditional Neapolitan arias into this programme, as if to remind us that the joy of singing must always come first.

Salieri's ‘Cublai, gran kan de' Tartari’ (1788) displays all its heroic-comic loquaciousness, for Giambattista Casti's libretto barely conceals its piquant parody of the European monarchical courts behind its plot set in Cathay. The figure of the Great Khan, in particular, is a droll evocation of Peter the Great. Censored even before its premiere, the work waited to be resurrected in its original version with the help of Les Talens Lyriques and their conductor Christophe Rousset, ardent defenders of Salieri's music.

Here, with her usual boundless curiosity, Ophélie Gaillard explores the diversity of the music and culture of Argentina. Tango, chacarera, Piazzolla and his “tango nuevo”, the evocative world of Ginastera, the Pampas and the Andean plateaux, a Carnival dance, a love song… this, and more. Joined by distinguished artists, Juanjo Mosalini and William Sabatier (bandoneons) and Tomás Bordalejo (guitar) – also the arrangers, or re-interpreters of these pieces – and singers Nahuel di Pierro, Inés Cuello and Agnès Jaoui, plus members of the Debussy Quartet, Ophélie Gaillard invites us to savour some of her favourite Argentine gems: the iconic La Cumparsita, the intimate Oblivion, Volver (recalling Carlos Gardel), and poetic treasures such as Pampeana, Puneña, and the delightful Canciónes – al árbol del olvido and a la luna lunanca.

Elsa Grether and Ferenc Vizi come together here for a programme centred on Spain. They bring together a collection of well-known pieces from the repertoire, including Manuel de Falla and Granados, and genuine rarities such as Rodrigo's Sonata pimpante and Turina's Poema de una sanluqueña. Drawing on Iberian folklore and the avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century, each of the works on this recording has its own unique language, synthesising in a unique way the different facets of the Spanish soul.

A Norman composer from the early 20th century and a little-known figure in French music, Gabriel Dupont was one of the last representatives of French post-romanticism, which died with him at the dawn of the Great War.With a remarkable sense of harmony and an undeniable talent for colour, Dupont depicted fragments of life to evoke a sensation, a moment, an interior landscape.Cyrille Dubois and Tristan Raës capture his sensibility, rooted in the everyday life, in this complete recording, a new stage in their melodic odyssey, sublimating the art of a composer whose supreme refinement consists in being moved (and moved) by a wrinkle (‘La Rencontre’), a perfume (‘Crépuscule d'été’, ‘Le Baiser’) or a light (‘Douceur du soir’).

18th-century Venice is the ultimate setting for splendor—architectural, pictorial, theatrical, musical, and vocal. Venetian opera shines across Europe, combining dramatic intensity with the beauty of vocal lines. Just as Canaletto and Guardi capture every facet of La Serenissima in their panoramic paintings, composers seek to explore the full spectrum of human emotions through opera.Returning to the recording scene, Sophie Junker invites us to discover these composers alongside Martyna Pastuszka, leading the {oh!} Orkiestra. Her brilliant and agile soprano flourishes in arias of fury and vengeance (Vivaldi and Lotti) as well as in the heartrending laments of an Iphigenia (Porta) or an Ariadne (Marcello). Meanwhile, Martyna Pastuszka’s violin leads one of the magnificent concertos from La Stravaganza (“The Extraordinary”)—a fitting subtitle for this program!

The three string quartets of Brahms emerged late in the career of the composer, who was skeptical for a long time given the burden of Beethoven's heritage. The Novus Quartet, winner of the ARD Competition and the Mozart Competition, has proven itself as one of Korea's best ensembles. From the beginning, it dared to the Second Vienna School, Franck, Shostakovich and Schubert. At Brahms, their transparent sound combines with full commitment and a concise, passionate melody that excellently lives up to the composer's incomparable sense of architecture.

Weber's first romantic heroine was undoubtedly the clarinet. Ten years before Max and the 'Freischütz', Weber composed his two clarinet concertos and began the Quintet. These three masterpieces he dedicated to the virtuoso Baermann, who substantially reworked the clarinet part of the concertos in his edition, which has now passed into posterity. For his first recording, clarinettist Arthur Stockel returns to the sources of the original scores. More stripped down, the solo part highlights the link between these pieces and the composer's dramatic imagination. Nurtured by Lieder and opera, Arthur Stockel explores their relationship to vocality and gives his instrument a Weberian role, between ardour, tenderness and pain. He is joined by the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, where he has held the post of principal clarinet since 2019, conductor Leo McFall and the Hanson Quartet, who respond with mischievousness (minuet from the Quintet), ardour and grandeur (First Concerto).

José de Nebra was to Spanish opera what Rameau was to French opera, both pioneer and architect of the revival of the genre in the eighteenth century. His pastoral melodrama ‘Venus y Adonis’ is recorded here for the first time almost 300 years after its premiere, by Alberto Miguélez Rouco and his ensemble Los Elementos.The result of a meticulous reconstruction by the conductor, a specialist in the composer, this recording allows us to rediscover both the splendour of Nebra's work and the singularities of the exuberant Hispanic Baroque, which is still too little known. Sung exclusively by women, ‘Venus y Adonis’ blends Italian style and traditional Spanish turns of phrase (the aria ‘Calquiera mozuela’, which combines fandango, zarambeque and castanets), with numerous borrowings from zarzuela. Based on one of mythology's most illustrious subjects, the work juxtaposes comedy (the duet of “chickens”) and seriousness, with more sensitive arias, such as the moving farewell aria by Adonis (Natalie Pérez).

Cage et Dowland: les deux John, à quatre cents ans de distance, se répondent par un goût commun pour une expression sobre, des formes concises, une réalisation intime - pour le plaisir aussi que procurent les mots en tant que tels. Chacun cultive ce désir à sa manière: Cage entreprend, en funambule, de s’approcher de l’essence de la pensée musicale avec humour, légèreté et profondeur; Dowland vise l’expression des sentiments à l’état pur.
Cultivant comme toujours un anachronisme fécond, Thélème rassemble dans ‘all we get is life’ l’intégralité des pièces pour deux voix et luth de Dowland et plusieurs compositions de Cage. Enfin, Sting, artiste à la renommée internationale, offre une réécriture de son tube ‘Shape of my Heart’, qui devient ici une sorte de ‘lute song’ du XXIe siècle, bouclant ainsi la boucle dans un album où Renaissance et présent se croisent, entrent en dialogue, se mêlent et se confondent pour transcender les frontières des esthétiques et des genres.

Bien que régulièrement interprété, peu de choses nous sont parvenues au sujet du Dixit Dominus de Händel. Oeuvre d’un compositeur de 22 ans, celle-ci reflète, par son impressionnante virtuosité, l’état d’esprit du Händel d’alors : fougueux, audacieux et sensible. Entouré des Argonautes et d’une splendide distribution soliste (Roset, Allérat, Pichanick, Billiemaz et Mazurov), Jonas Descotte fait ici le choix d’un effectif restreint pour en livrer une lecture renouvelée, guidée par l’intention dramatique, la générosité, la précision et la souplesse de la ligne. Et pour répondre au génie du Saxon, l’ensemble convoque Lotti, son ami et mentor, avec son Dixit Dominus, un Crucifixus à 5 et son Miserere mei, répliquant à cette jeunesse tricentenaire avec feu, maturité et exceptionnelle finesse.

With "Falcon", Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak pays tribute to one of the most beautiful voices of the 19th century: Cornélie Falcon.An exceptional singer with generous, powerful lows, capable of reaching impressive heights, she gave her name to a well-known voice type: the "Falcon soprano".A contemporary of Pauline Viardot and her sister Maria Malibran, she was one of the stars of French singing, with a career that was as exceptional as it was dazzling. She suffered a tragic fate with the early loss of her voice, launched too early into the limelight.She was also the creator of two of the most important operas of her time: Halévy's La Juive, in which she played a sublime Rachel in 1835, and Meyerbeer's Les Hugenots, a triumph at its premiere.Accompanied by the Morphing Chamber Orchestra conducted by Bassem Akiki, Aleksandra Kurzak embraces her repertoire, taking on the roles that have made her famous, from Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) and the Countess of Rossini (Le Comte Ory) to Spontini (La Vestale) and Niedermeyer, as well as Halévy and Meyerbeer. She brilliantly embodies the roles of Cornélie Falcon in a programme that is as ambitious as it is demanding.
With a very active international career, Aleksandra Kurzak will sing Tosca in Puccini's opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in September 2024, and Fedora in Umberto Giordano's opera at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in November 2024.

Around 1680, Dieterich Buxtehude composed Membra Jesu Nostri, a cycle of seven cantatas combining mystical medieval poetry and lyrical excerpts from the Old Testament to venerate the wounds of Christ. In 2021, Swiss composer Xavier Dayer echoes this with Afin que le lion féroce ne l’attaque pas. He joins the five singers and ten instrumentalists of Membra Jesu Nostri with a modern wind quintet, questioning in his own words the protective force of the artistic and contemplative gesture, in the interweaving of sonorities between ancient and modern instruments and human voices.