Paris est une fête Alexandra Soumm, Orchestre de Chambre Pelléas & Benjamin Levy

• Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974): Cinéma Fantaisie for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 58b:
• 1 Milhaud: Cinéma Fantaisie for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 58b (After Le bœuf sur le toit, Cadenza by Arthur Honegger) 16:30
• Emmanuel Chabrier (1841 - 1894): Bourrée fantasque:
• 2 Chabrier: Bourrée fantasque (Arr. for Violin and Orchestra by Thibault Perrine) 06:41
• Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937): Tzigane, M. 76:
• 3 Ravel: Tzigane, M. 76 10:27
• Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875): Symphony in C Major:
• 4 Bizet: Symphony in C Major: I. Allegro vivo 10:09
• 5 Bizet: Symphony in C Major: II. Adagio 10:05
• 6 Bizet: Symphony in C Major: III. Allegro vivace 05:29
• 7 Bizet: Symphony in C Major: IV. Allegro vivace 06:26
• Total Runtime 01:05:47

Info for Paris est une fête

From the Second Empire to the Roaring Twenties, Alexandra Soumm, the Orchestre de Chambre Pelléas and Benjamin Levy paint a dishevelled, nostalgic and swaying portrait of the City of Light that spans seventy years of music.

This recording, a testament to the musical and human affinities forged over many years between these performers, is also a return to the composers' creative sources, with a first recording of Ravel’s Tzigane in the new Ravel Edition as well as a first recording of the orchestration of Emmanuel Chabrier's Bourrée fantasque according to the sketches left unfinished by the composer.

From the crinolines of Georges Bizet's adolescence to the wisps of cigar smoke in the dreamy Brazil of Le Boeuf sur le toit, we dive into an era when Paris set the tempo for cosmopolitan and carefree celebrations.

Alexandra Soumm, violin
Orchestre de Chambre Pelleas
Benjamin Levy, conductor

Alexandra Soumm is a multi-faceted artist who is equally at home in concerto and chamber repertoire. ​

Her 21/22 season will be marked by her appointment as Associate Artist of the Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra, allowing her to perform throughout the season in chamber music and as a soloist in concertos by Bartok, Bach, Max Richter, as well as the Brahms Double concerto with cellist Gary Hoffman. She will also make her debut with the Rochester Orchestra and return to the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Louvre Auditorium in her Odysseys world-music program with vibraphonist Illya Amar. ​

Alexandra has appeared with the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Israël Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Galicia Symphony, Danish National Symphony, NHK Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl among many others. She has given recitals at the Auditorium du Louvre (Paris), Palais des Beaux- Arts (Brussels), and Wigmore Hall (London) and has also appeared at the City of London Festival, and the festivals of Deauville, Schleswig-Holstein, Verbier, and Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad. A passionate supporter of the newest generations of musicians, Ms. Soumm has loved her work with Youth Orchestra of the Americas, the Animato Foundation, the Sphinx Foundation, and Orchestre Français des Jeunes, and has maintained an involvement with the Seiji Ozawa International Academy in Switzerland for over 10 years. ​

Alexandra’s strongest ties are to France and England where she has ongoing relationships with many leading orchestras including Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Montpellier, and most of the BBC ensembles with whom she worked as former BBC 3 New Generation Artist and London Music Masters Awardee. ​

Born in Moscow, Alexandra started to learn the violin at the age of five and gave her first concert two years later. She later moved to Vienna to study with the renowned pedagogue Boris Kuschnir and won the Eurovision Competition in 2004. Now based in Paris, she, along with two friends, founded the nonprofit organization Esperanz’Arts, whose goal is making the Arts in all its forms accessible to people in schools, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters. Alexandra was named Godmother of El Sistema France. ​

Passionate for teaching and communicating her artistry, she has given masterclasses in the United States, Venezuela, Brazil, UK, Japan, Israel, and Kenya. In 2018, she joined the Artistic and Pedagogical Committee of the Musica Mundi school, based in Belgium, and was named teacher at the The University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna from October 2021. ​

Alexandra Soumm works regularly with contemporary composers, such as Christoph Ehrenfellner, who composed a string quartet and his second violin concerto for her, Krystof Maratka, Benoît Menut, and Eric Tanguy, who composed a piece for soprano and piano, based on her poem “Cercle.” Alexandra plays on a Gioffredo Cappa violin, made around 1700.