Saint-Saëns - Hahn: À la lumière Accentus, Christophe Grapperon & Eloïse Bella Kohn

• Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921):
• 1 Saint-Saëns: Romance du soir, Op. 118 04:00
• 2 chœurs, Op. 68:
• 2 Saint-Saëns: 2 chœurs, Op. 68: No. 1, Calme des nuits 04:55
• 3 chœurs, Op. 68:
• 3 Saint-Saëns: 3 chœurs, Op. 68: No. 2, Les fleurs et les arbres 01:59
• 2 chœurs, Op. 141:
• 4 Saint-Saëns: 2 chœurs, Op. 141: No. 1, Des pas dans l'allée 05:59
• Camille Saint-Saëns:
• 5 Saint-Saëns: Saltarelle, Op. 74 05:26
• Reynaldo Hahn (1874 - 1947): Chansons et madrigaux:
• 6 Hahn: Chansons et madrigaux: No. 2, Vivons, mignarde ! 01:42
• 7 Hahn: Chansons et madrigaux: No. 3, Pleurez avec moi ! 03:41
• 8 Hahn: Chansons et madrigaux: No. 6, Les Fourriers d'été 01:24
• Reynaldo Hahn:
• 9 Hahn: L'obscurité 02:39
• 10 Hahn: À la lumière 10:19
• 12 rondels:
• 11 Hahn: 12 rondels: No. 1, Le jour 03:56
• 12 Hahn: 12 rondels: No. 11, La nuit 02:43
• Reynaldo Hahn:
• 13 Hahn: Aubade athénienne 04:31
• Total Runtime 53:14

Info for Saint-Saëns - Hahn: À la lumière

Ever since its creation more than twenty-five years ago, the Accentus chamber choir has ardently championed the a cappella repertory: under its conductor and founder Laurence Equilbey, it has produced an impressive discography that sets the benchmark in this music. For this new recording, the first for Alpha, she hands over direction of the ensemble to Christophe Grapperon, its associate conductor since 2013: ‘It can never be said often enough: the a cappella repertory is a Holy Grail of vocal music! It is a sensory experience directly accessible to everyone, but demanding and often atypical for the listener.’ Hahn and Saint-Saëns are on the programme of this album in superb choral works combining simplicity and expressive power, some of which have never been recorded before.

Eloïse Bella Kohn, piano
Accentus
Christophe Grapperon, direction

Eloïse Bella Kohn
is a regular guest of France’s most prominent concert venues and festivals, such as Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Cité de la Musique, Salle Gaveau, Auditorium du Musée d’Orsay, Auditorium de Radio France, La Roque d’Anthéron, Radio France à Montpellier, Lille Piano Festival, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, Pablo Casals in Prades, Chorégies d’Orange, Chapelle Corneille in Rouen and the Festival International d’Art lyrique in Aix-en-Provence.

Being awarded Young Talent by the renown cultural magazine Diapason in 2016 and “Yamaha Artist” since 2018, the young French pianist shows an extraordinary depth of musicality and is leading a promising career. She makes regular appearances as studio guest of France Musique, France 2, France 3, RT, IDAGIO Global Concert Hall, and other major cultural radio channels such as BBC Radio 3, RTS Suisse, Österreich 1, RBB Kultur, SWR2, NDR, Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

As soloist and a demanded chamber musician, she is invited to important European concert houses and festivals, such as the Berliner Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, the Stavanger Konserthus in Norway, the Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Sala Cecília Meireles in Rio de Janeiro and the festival Classissimo in Brussels. She shared successful collaborations with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, the Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, the Philharmonisches Orchester Vorpommern, the Elbland Philharmonie Sachsen, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc, the Accentus Choir, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro da Paz (Belém, Brazil), under the baton of Jean-Claude Casadesus, Laurent Campellone, Christophe Grapperon, Christoph Koncz, Thomas Koncz, Florian Csizmadia, Gábor Hontvári, Andreas Wittmann, Stanley Dodds and Miguel Campos Neto. During the season 2017/18, Eloïse Bella Kohn was part of the renown ECHO Rising Stars series, performing at Konserthuset Stockholm, Sage Gateshead, United Kingdom, and the Müpa in Budapest alongside Tamás Pálfalvi.

She is collaborating with outstanding chamber music partners, such as Bruno Delepelaire, Daniel Ottensamer, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Silvia Careddu, Sophie and Félix Dervaux – soloists of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam – as well as Nobuko Imai, Arabella Steinbacher, Christiane Karg, Renaud Capuçon, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, Aylen Pritchin, Philippe Berrod, Michel Portal, Eric Le Sage and Adam Laloum.

Eloïse Bella Kohn was born in Paris in 1991 and started her musical education at the Yamaha music school at the age of four. She entered the National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance (CNSM) and studied with Michel Béroff, Eric Le Sage, David Fray and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. In 2009, she participated in a project initiated by Alexandre Tharaud at the Cité de la Musique, dedicated to the music of French composer Erik Satie. In addition to her pianistic education she studied music theory with Thierry Escaich and graduated with distinction in 2010/11. She continued her studies at the University of Music in Freiburg, Germany and in 2015 at the University of Music and performing Arts Vienna with Lilya Zilberstein. She received important musical impulses during masterclasses with Aldo Ciccolini, Dmitri Bashkirov, Thomas Adès, Robert Levin, Christian Zacharias, András Schiff and was laureate of the Révélations Classiques de l’ADAMI in 2014.

She is co-founder with the violonist Christoph Koncz of the chamber music festival Europäische Musiktage Heidelberg.

In 2018 her first album featuring Debussy’s 24 Préludes was released by the german label Hänssler Classic ; it was awarded a prestigious “CHOC de Classica”by the french leading classical music magazine and was nominated in three categories for the german music award OPUS KLASSIK 2019. Her second album was released in the fall 2021 by Hänssler Classic and features Bach’s Art of the Fugue with a new completion by Thierry Escaich. Her album alongside the Accentus Choir featuring works by Saint-Saëns and Reynaldo Hahn is released in 2022 by Alpha Classics and nominated “Le Choix de France Musique”.

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