New Naïve signing baritone Stéphane Degout has already featured as soloist with the internationally renowned choral group Accentus on Brahms' German Requiem and Fauré's Requiem. The programme on his solo debut CD is a selection of mélodies by various French composers, Debussy, Ravel, Duparc, Saint-Saëns, Chabrier, and Reynaldo Hahn. Stéphane Degout first met pianist Hélène Lucas when he entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon in 1995.
Michel Roux was a sought-after performer in Offenbach’s operas conducted by Jules Gressier, such as La belle Hélène in which, along with a superb cast, he embodies Calchas.
Michel Roux was a sought-after performer in Offenbach’s operas conducted by Jules Gressier, such as La belle Hélène in which, along with a superb cast, he embodies Calchas.
Saint-Saëns's first opera, Le Timbre d'argent initially composed in 1864 need not fear comparison with some of the most celebrated works in the nineteenth-century French repertory. It depicts the nightmare of a man whose hallucinations anticipate by twenty years the fantastical apparitions of Offenbach's Les Contes d Hoffmann.
For her latest studio album, Hélène travels to Salzburg where she creates a fascinating juxtaposition between the eternal W A Mozart and the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (b 1937) Hélène has long had a passion for Silvestrov’s music, which some call post modernist or even neoclassical .."Like Arvo Pärt Silvestrov’s music is harmonic, which far from being a weakness, is an enlightenment in its own right and very powerful in its simplicity", says Hélène The composer’s own words hint at why this is for her so intriguing I do not write new music My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists".
One of the world’s most celebrated pianists, renowned for the emotional intensity of her interpretations, Hélène Grimaud presents a beautiful, haunting call to nature – ‘WATER’ is an evocative, experimental, deeply personal project combining Hélène’s two greatest passions: music and nature