Boesmans, Bartholomée, Foccroulle & Mernier: For Early Instruments Bernard Foccroulle, Clematis, InAlto, L'Achéron, Ensemble Alarius

Alice Foccroulle
soprano, was a member of the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie children’s choir from the age of seven. Besides the lessons she takes with the Danish singing teacher Susanna Eken, she studied at the Musikhochschule Köln as a student of Joseph Protschka and Christoph Prégardien. Alice is regularly invited to perform with various ensembles and conductors such as Collegium Vocale Gent (Philippe Herreweghe), la Fenice (Jean Tubéry), Musica Favola (Stephane van Dijck) and Wim Becu. She took part in the “House of the sleeping beauties” composed by Kris Defoort and conducted by Patrick Davin, created in the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie and performed all over Europe. More recently, she recorded the roll of Dorinda in Zamponi's opera "Ulysse", conducted by Leonardo Garcia Alarcòn for the label Ricercar.

Reinoud Van Mechelen
graduated from his vocal studies at the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels in the class of Dina Grossberger in 2012. In 2017 he was awarded the prestigious Caecilia Prize as Young Musician of the Year from the union of the Belgian music press. An acknowledgement from "home" for the artist who managed to establish himself at numerous international stages within his early years of career.

Already in 2007 Reinoud Van Mechelen caught attention at the European Baroque Academy in Ambronay (France) under the baton of Hervé Niquet. In 2011 he was a member of William Christie’s and Paul Agnew’s "Jardin des Voix" and became a regular soloist of Les Arts florissants subsequently. Guest appeareances with this ensemble made him perform at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, the Edinburgh Festival, the Château de Versailles, the Bolchoï Theatre in Moscow, the Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican Centre in London, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Philharmony and the Opéra Comique in Paris as well as at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.

Many renowned Baroque ensembles such as Collegium Vocale, Le Concert Spirituel, La Petite Bande, Les Talens Lyriques, Pygmalion, Le Poème Harmonique, Il Gardellino, Insula Orchestra, L’Arpeggiata, Ludus Modalis, B’Rock, Ricercar Consort, Capriccio Stravagante, Scherzi Musicali and the European Union Baroque Orchestra, Hespèrion XXI ensured his cooperation.

In 2014 Reinoud Van Mechelen sang the part of the Evangelist in J. S. Bach's St. John Passion for the first time in his career with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, a part he will be singing again with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, among others. The last few seasons have, however, been highlighted by his performances of Rameau’s title-role in Dardanus (Opéra national de Bordeaux) and Zoroastre (on concert-tour to the Festival de Montpellier et Radio-France, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Festival de Beaune, the Théâtre Royal in Versailles and the Theater an der Wien), both productions with Raphaël Pichon conducting. 2016/17 saw his Zurich Opera debut as Jason in Charpentier's Médée conducted by William Christie. Apart from numerous other commitments, he added further new roles in concert version to his repertory: Belmonte (The Abduction from the Seraglio) with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Gérald (Lakmé) with the Munich Radio Orchestra.

Besides numerous performances with his own ensemble, a nocte temporis, he took part in 2017/18 in the jubilee-production celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Concert Spirituel („Un opéra imaginaire“) as well as in two concert-tours with Les Arts florissants (Actéon by Charpentier in the USA and Selva Morale by Monteverdi in Paris, Versailles, Caen, Berlin and London). He also performed the title-role in Rameau’s Pygmalion at the Dijon Opera.

His season 2018/19 will be highlighted by his debuts at the Théâtre royal de la Monnaie (Tamino in Die Zauberflöte) and at the Staatsoper Berlin (Hippolyte in Hippolyte et Aricie under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle).

Reinoud Van Mechelen already joined numerous CD- and DVD-productions. His first solo CD with the title "Erbame Dich" (arias by J. S. Bach) was released by Alpha Classics in 2016 finding unanimous acclaim by the press and receiving both a "Choc" from the monthly magazine Classica („A Bach-recording blessed by the gods“) as well as one of 10 Caecilia-Awards for the best recordings of the year 2016. His second solo CD ("Clérambault, cantates françaises"), again by Alpha Classics, has been released in 2018 and generates no less enthousiasm ("Diapason d'or" for instance) than the first recording.

Bernard Foccroulle
was born in Liège (Belgium) in 1953. He began his international career as an organist in the mid-70s, playing a wide range of repertoire from Renaissance to contemporary music. He has performed dozens of world premieres of works by Philippe Boesmans, Brian Ferneyhough, Betsy Jolas, Xavier Darasse, Jonathan Harvey and Pascal Dusapin, among others. In the 1980s, he was a member of the Ricercar Consort, an ensemble devoted mainly to German baroque music. Since then, he has made his name as an organist as well as a composer and artistic director of major musical institutions.

Bernard Foccroulle’s discography as a soloist includes more than forty CDs. He has won various awards, including a Diapason d’Or for his recording of Dietrich Buxtehude’s complete organ works for the Ricercar label, and for the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which he recorded on beautifully preserved historic instruments. In 2014 he released a recording of the complete works of Matthias Weckmann on Ricercar and an album of his own organ works on Aeon.

As a soloist, Bernard Foccroulle regularly appears worldwide at the major concert halls of Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Sydney, Madrid, Torino, Oslo, Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg, Salzburg, Cologne, and Hamburg. In 2016, he inaugurated the new organ of the Paris Philharmonie together with other prominent organists.

In addition to solo organ recitals, he regularly plays with cornetto players such as Jean Tubéry and Lambert Colson, as well as with singers such as Palestinian singer and ‘Ud player Moneim Adwan. Another important aspect of Bernard Foccroulle’s work is the combination of music with other art forms, for example his collaboration with choreographers Jan Fabre (Preparatio mortis) and Salva Sanchis. One of his most outstanding current projects is Darkness and Light, in collaboration with Australian video artist Lynette Wallworth.

While continuing his career as organist, he became director of the Brussels opera house La Monnaie in 1992, holding this position until 2007. In 1993, he founded the "Culture and Democracy" association, which seeks to broaden participation in cultural life. From 2007 to 2018 he was Artistic Director of the Festival of Aix-en-Provence. In 2017, he received the Leadership Award at the International Opera Awards in London.

As composer, Bernard Foccroulle has written works for soprano and orchestra (Am Rande der Nacht after Rilke), for baritone and chamber music ensemble (Due after De Luca…), for soprano, baritone and chamber music ensemble (E vidi quattro stelle after Dante’s Purgatorio), soprano and piano (Quatre mélodies d’après Verlaine). Zauberland, a song cycle for soprano and piano based on poems by Martin Crimp, will premiere in April 2019 at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris under the direction of Katie Mitchell. He has also composed a cycle of pieces for historic organs (CD AEON, Diapason d’Or 2016).

Bernard Foccroulle is the author of La naissance de l'individu dans l 'art (Grasset, 2003), written in collaboration with Robert Legros and Tzvetan Todorov. He has also published two other books, which are based on interviews: Entre passion et résistance (Labor, 2005) and Faire vivre l'opéra, un art qui donne sens au monde (Actes Sud, 2018).

He is Doctor Honoris Causa of Montréal University and Aix-Marseille Université, and has been Professor of Organ at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels since 2010.

Lambert Colson
received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels under Françoise Defours, Pedro Memelsdorff, Bart Coen, Marleen Leicher, Bruce Dickey and Gebhard David. He also studied in Bremen (University of the Arts), Basel (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis), and Barcelona (ESMUC). He has worked with ensembles and conductors of the calibre of Les Talens lyriques (Christophe Rousset), Le Parlement de Musique (Martin Gester), Scherzi Musicali (Nicolas Achten), Les Paladins (Jérôme Correas), L’Echelle and Oltremontano. As a musician and researcher, he has contributed to journals including La pensée de midi (Editions Actes Sud), and is involved with the Royaumont Foundation, where he teaches on Lutheran music in the Holy Roman Empire and assists the composer Zad Moultaka.

Several contemporary composers, including Zad Moultaka, Fabrice Fitch und Bernard Foccroulle, have been inspired by Lambert’s boundless enthusiasm for learning more about his instrument to dedicate pieces to him. His interest in innovative joint projects led Lambert to discover hypnosis while working with the choreographer Catherine Contour.

In cooperation with artists such as Liesa van der Aa and Shara Worden, BOX allows him to explore the range of possibilities open to his instruments in popular music.

This fervent commitment to being a musician in tune with his time clearly motivates the search for musical and emotional cross-fertilisations Lambert and InAlto have embarked on.

This album contains no booklet.