Freiburger Barockorchester, Vox Luminis & Lionel Meunier
Biographie Freiburger Barockorchester, Vox Luminis & Lionel Meunier
Lionel Meunier
Internationally renowned as the founder and artistic director of the award-winning Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, French conductor and bass Lionel Meunier is widely regarded as one of the most dynamic and highly acclaimed artistic leaders in the fields of historical performance and choral music active today. Praised for his detailed yet spirited interpretative approach, he is now increasingly in demand as a guest conductor and artistic director with choirs, ensembles, and orchestras worldwide.
Lionel’s international breakthrough came in 2012 with Vox Luminis’ Gramophone Recording of Year award for their recording of Heinrich Schütz’ Musicalische Exequien. Under his leadership, Vox Luminis has since embarked on extensive concert tours throughout Europe, North America, and Asia; established multi-season artistic residencies at Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Festival, Utrecht Early Music Festival, and Concertgebouw Brugge; and recorded about 20 critically acclaimed albums. The recording of Buxtehude won them their second Gramophone Award, for 2019 Choral Recording of the Year.
As a guest conductor, Lionel has worked with Netherlands Bach Society, Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Netherlands Chamber Choir, Salzburg Bach Choir, and the Boston Early Music Festival Collegium and has led projects with Vox Luminis in collaboration with Orchestra B’Rock, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and L’Achéron, among many others. Lionel maintains a close relationship with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Consort, returning regularly to lead collaborative projects with Vox Luminis that cover a wide repertoire.
Highlights of the 2022/2023 season included a residency at Juilliard culminating in a highly acclaimed performance of Purcell’s King Arthur in Alice Tully Hall; and a three-week European tour with Vox Luminis and Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with Bach’s St Matthew Passion to major venues including Berlin Philharmonie, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and Palau de la Musica, Barcelona. The 2023/2024 season includes performances all over Europe and North America with Vox Luminis and a residency at CNSMD Paris where Lionel will conduct performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and St. John Passion. He is also guest conductor at Conservatorium Amsterdam for a series of concerts around Henry Purcell’s Ode to St. Cecilia.
Born in France, Lionel was trained as a singer and recorder player and began his career as a bass in renowned ensembles such as Collegium Vocale Ghent, Amsterdam Baroque Choir, and Capella Pratensis. In 2013, he was awarded the title of Namurois de l’Année (Namur Citizen of the Year) for culture in the Belgian town of Namur, where he lives with his family.
Vox Luminis
From its very first notes in 2004, early music ensemble Vox Luminis has claimed the international spotlight with its unique sound. Founder, artistic director and bass Lionel Meunier composed the ensemble in such a way that each voice can shine solo as well as merge into one luminous fabric of sound.
Depending on the repertoire, this core of vocalists is flanked by an extensive continuo, solo instruments, or its full orchestra. That repertoire comprises mainly English, Italian and German music from the 17th and early 18th century, from virtuoso masterpieces to yet untouched gems that are given full scope both at some 70 concerts a year and in recordings.
Vox Luminis’ mission is clear: to bring vocal music to a wide audience, with excellence as its guiding principle and touchstone. Concerts, recordings, workshops with audiences around the world and a rigorous working method are means to this end.
The magic of Vox Luminis has not escaped the international music scene and press. In 2012, the ensemble won the Baroque Vocal Award and the prestigious Recording of the Year at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards for Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien. Seven years later, the Choral Award from the same professional magazine for the recording Buxtehude: Abendmusiken followed. Meanwhile, the trophy cabinet filled up with awards such as ‘Klara Ensemble of the Year 2018’, a 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award in the category ‘Choral’, numerous Diapasons d’Or, the 2020 Caecilia Prize and the Preis der Deutschen Schalplattenkritik, the last one being awarded even several times.
Vox Luminis is artist in residence at Concertgebouw Brugge and at the Abbaye Musicale de Malonne (Namur). In 2021, it started a structural and lasting partnership with the prestigious Freiburger Barockorchester and the Freiburger BarockConsort for several projects per year.
The ensemble is also a welcome guest at major concert halls and festivals worldwide, including Bozar and Flagey in Brussels, De Singel Antwerp, Auditorio Nacional en Teatro Real Madrid, L’Auditori and Palau de la Musica Barcelona, Salle Gaveau and Auditorium de Radio France in Paris, Wigmore Hall London, Philharmonie Berlin and Cologne, Laeiszhalle and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Lincoln Center New York, Jordan Hall Boston, Zaryadye Hall Moscow, Festival van Vlaanderen, Festival de Wallonie, Festival de Saintes, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Musikfest Bremen, Bachfest Leipzig, Klangvokal Dortmund, the Salzburger Festspiele, Aldeburgh Festival et Boston Early Music Festival, amongst others.
In the season 2023-2024, Vox Luminis will celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Vox Luminis enjoys the valued support of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (FWB) and Wallonie-Bruxelles International (WBI).
The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
can look back on a success story lasting over twenty years and is a popular guest at the most important concert halls and opera houses. A glance at the ensemble’s concert calendar shows a diverse repertoire played at a variety of venues, ranging from the Baroque to the musical present and from Freiburg to the Far East.
The Freiburgers’ artistic credo, however, remains unchanged: the creative curiosity of each of them, with the intention of playing a composition in as lively and as expressive a manner as possible. This also involves their own members playing demanding solo concerts. Cultivated and simultaneously rousing ensemble playing has thus become an international trade mark: “The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra is a diamond of particular brilliance. In the technical and mental ‘mastery’ of the instruments and the individual parts one sees what ‘historical’ music-making is currently capable of. Vivid and pure, transparent and lucid, delicate in phrasing and articulation and without excessive pathetic pressure, one hears all the details and experiences the whole as a musical cosmos of overpowering richness. Open your ears, this is how music sounds!” (Salzburger Nachrichten)
The FBO continuously collaborates with important artists such as René Jacobs, Pablo-Heras Casado, Philip Jaroussky, Andreas Staier and Thomas Quasthoff, and has a close alliance with the French label harmonia mundi France. The artistic success of this musical partnership is expressed in numerous CD productions and the receipt of prominent awards, such as the ECHO Classical German Music Prize 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2007, the Gramophone Award 2011, the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2009, the Edison Classical Music Award 2008, or the Classical Brit Award 2007.
Under the artistic directorship of its two concertmasters Gottfried von der Goltz and Petra Müllejans, and under the baton of selected conductors, the FBO presents itself with about one hundred performances per year in a variety of formations from chamber to opera orchestra: a self-administrated ensemble with its own subscription concerts at Freiburg’s Concert Hall, Stuttgart’s Liederhalle, and Berlin’s Philharmonie and with tours all over the world.
