Max Richter Concert in the Auditorium

Max Richter stands as one of the most prodigious figures on the contemporary music scene, with ground-breaking work as a composer, pianist, producer, and collaborator. From synthesizers and computers to a full symphony orchestra, Richter’s innovative work encompasses solo albums, ballets, concert hall performances, film and television series, video art installations and theater works. He is classically trained, studying at Edinburgh University, the Royal Academy of Music, London, and completing his studies with composer Luciano Berio in Florence. “Memoryhouse”, Richter’s 2002 debut, has been described by The Independent, and Pitchfork Magazine as a “landmark”, while his 2004 album “The Blue Notebooks'' was chosen by The Guardian as one of the best Classical works of the century. “SLEEP”, his eight- and-a-half-hour concert work, has been broadcast and performed worldwide, including at the Sydney Opera House, Berlin’s Kraftwerk, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Philharmonie de Paris, and at the Barbican, London. In 2012 Richter ‘Recomposed’ the infamous Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, winning him the prestigious ECHO Classic Award, and an established place in the classical charts. In recent years Richter’s music has become a mainstay for many of the world’s leading ballet companies, including The Mariinski Ballet, La Scala Milan, The Joffrey Ballet, New York City Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Semper Oper, and NDT, while his collaborations with Wayne McGregor for The Royal Ballet have been widely acclaimed. His most recent collaboration was with Margaret Atwood and Wayne McGregor, based on Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy of novels, premiering in Toronto in September 2022

Direction

British/German conductor, Matthew Lynch, enjoys a varied career in both Germany and the UK, working with orchestras such as the Saxon Wind Philharmonic, the Chineke! Orchestras, and the Ulster Orchestra. In addition to symphonic repertoire, he is a regular conductor of opera, and in recent seasons has conducted new productions of La Bohème, Rusalka, and Don Giovanni in Dresden, and Treemonisha at London’s Grimeborn Festival. This season sees him make several high profile debuts, including the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the Sydney Opera House. He will also be returning to the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig with the Saxon Wind Philharmonic and returning to Belfast to work with the Ulster Orchestra.

Soprano

Grace Davidson is a British soprano who specialises first and foremost in the performance and recording of Baroque music.

Her discography includes a decade of recordings with The Sixteen, many of which feature her as soloist – Handel’s Jeptha (as Angel), Dixit Dominus, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Pianto della Madonna, Acis and Galatea (as Galatea) and the Lutheran Masses of Bach. On Radio Three’s ‘Building a Library’, her singing in Fauré’s Requiem (with the London Symphony Orchestra and Tenebrae, Nigel Short conducting) was reviewed by Richard Morrison quite simply: “Grace Davidson’s Pie Jesu is matchless”.

Grace’s purity of tone has attracted many of the leading contemporary composers to write for her, most notably Max Richter, who chose her as the solo singer for many of his works, such as Sleep. This piece – lasting all night – has now been performed all over the world, including a performance in 2019 on the Great Wall of China

Imogen Russell is a soprano based in Oxford, UK. She has worked with numerous professional ensembles across the country, including Polyphony, Ex Cathedra, the Carice Singers and many more. Since 2022, she has been a member of the UK’s premier all-female a cappella group, Papagena. She has toured the world with these groups, recently performing at the Riyadh Opera Festival 2023 with the National Symphony Orchestra. 

Le Balcon was founded in 2008 by a conductor (Maxime Pascal), a sound engineer (Florent Derex), a pianist and conductor (Alphonse Cemin) and three composers (Juan Pablo Carreño, Mathieu Costecalde, Pedro Garcia Velasquez). Le Balcon adapts to its projects and concerts, not least the number of members, as well as the visual concept and its interaction with sound design and electronic music. The ensemble is named after the 1956 play, Le Balcon, by Jean Genet, which places the ensemble’s artistic and musical projects, much like the playwright, in the area of narration, language and representation.

The ensemble was initially located at the Église Saint-Merry, followed by the Théâtre de l’Athénée Louis-Jouvet, and gradually became a transdisciplinary collective, uniting an orchestra with a troupe of artists from many discipliness. Le Balcon creates productions from a repertoire spanning all eras of music history, with a particular focus on works from the 20th and 21st centuries. In its seven years at the Athénée Théâtre, Le Balcon produced numerous operas and plays, including Strauss’s Ariane auf Naxos, Eötvös’s Le Balcon, Levinas’s La Métamorphose, and world premieres such as Lavandier’s Le Premier Meurtre and Eldar’s Like Flesh.