i Compagnon

Né à Nice en 1996, Sandro Compagnon commence le saxophone à 6 ans lorsqu’il déménage à Chamonix Mont-Blanc avec comme premier professeur, son père.

In the popular imagination, French Christmas music may now be almost wholly defined by Minuit, chrétiens and favourites such as Petit Papa Noël covered by Charles Aznavour and Johnny Hallyday, but the festive season was marked in the Baroque era with great merriment, principally through the genre of Noëls: sacred collections of secular songs, celebrating often vernacular aspects of the Nativity such as the Shepherds, especially by giving the occasion to compose in the always popular pastoral vein, in simple keys such as F major and in the lilting siciliano rhythm.

Newly remastered at Emil Berliner Studios. Abbado’s years with the London Symphony Orchestra resulted in three celebrated sets with the Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza in central roles – and few could be more “central” than Bizet’s Carmen. Made in 1977, the recording followed staged performances directed by Piero Fagioni at the Edinburgh Festival. Berganza had studied the Carmen story, immersed herself in the opera’s background and delivered a characterization that emphasized the gipsy’s nobility, while Abbado’s conducting was both dramatic and vividly coloured.

Since the Baroque revival of the late 1980s, Iphigenie en Aulide is Gluck's only French opera to have remained unrecorded (in the studio and released on CD) on period instruments. To celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2024, Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de la Loge, Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles and a top-flight cast led by Judith Van Wanroij, Stephanie d'Oustrac, Cyrille Dubois, Tassis Christoyannis, Jean-Sebastien Bou and David Witczak have filled that gap with a new recording of the work which revolutionised the aesthetics of French opera. It is underpinned by in-depth musicological and stylistic research carried out by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles in collaboration with Julien Chauvin, in this, his first operatic recording.

Since the Baroque revival of the late 1980s, Iphigenie en Aulide is Gluck's only French opera to have remained unrecorded on period instruments. To celebrate it's 250th anniversary in 2024, Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de la Loge, Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles and a top-flight cast led by Judith van Wanroij, Stephanie d'Oustrac, Cyrille Dubois, Tassis Christoyannis, Jean-Sebastien Bou and David Witczak have filled that gap with a new recording of the work which revolutionised the aesthetics of French opera.