Damien Guillon & Café Zimmermann
Biography Damien Guillon & Café Zimmermann
Damien Guillon
begins his musical knowledge in 1989 at the Maîtrise de Bretagne supervised by Jean-Michel Noël. He receives a full music education from his youngest age and quickly sings as solo soprano in many baroque oratorios as well as at the Rennes Opera in The Magic Flute by Mozart.
From 1998 till 2001, he is a member of the Maîtrise du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles directed by Olivier Schneebeli, where he improves his vocal technique and deepens his research about early music interpretations with Howard Crook, Jérome Corréas, Alain Buet, Noëlle Barker. In 2004, he is admitted at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis to receive the teaching of Andreas Scholl. At the same time, he studies organ with Frédéric Desenclos and Véronique Le Guen and graduated in Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory (continuo and harpsichord).
Currently, his vocal and musical qualities earned him invitations to perform with conductors as famous as Masaaki Suzuki, Vincent Dumestre, Hervé Niquet, Philippe Pierlot, Pierre Hantaï, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Christophe Rousset, Philippe Herreweghe and William Christie.
His repertoire ranges from songs of the English Renaissance to Baroque oratorios and operas by Monteverdi (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Bach (Saint John Passion, Saint Matthew Passion, Mass in B minor, Lutherian masses, Christmas Oratorio and cantatas for solo alto), Händel (The Messiah), Purcell (King Arthur and Dido and Aeneas) etc...
He performed in several staged productions such as Händel’s Athalie (Paul McCreesh in Ambronay), Teseo (Gilbert Bezzina, Nice Opera) and Giulio Cesare (François-Xavier Roth, Yannis Kokkos, Théâtre de Caen), Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Philippe Pierlot, Théâtre de La Monnaie, Brussels) or, recently, Landi’s Il Sant' Alessio (William Christie and Les Arts
Florissants).
Damien Guillon is now frequently invited as a conductor: he conducted Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Christo with Les Musicians du Paradis, Bach’s Magnificat with the Café Zimmermann and the Chamber Choir of Rouen at the Arques-la-Bataille Festival and Bach’s cantatas with the Collegium Vocale Gent in Saintes.
Recent engagements include his debut concert at the Edinburgh festival (Eustazio in Händel’s Rinaldo conducted by Maasaki Suzuki), a tour with Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel
in Vivaldi’s Gloria and Nisi Dominus (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Opéra de Montpellier etc...) and the role of Arcane in Händel’s Teseo with Les Folies Françoises and Patrick Cohën-Akenine (Théâtre d’Orléans, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées).
This season, he will sing the alto solo part in Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion with Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent (Lincoln Center in New York, Palau de la Musica in Barcelone, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Baden-Baden Festival etc...) and Saint John Passion with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy (Palais Montcalm in Québec and Carnegie Hall in New York).
Café Zimmermann
Founded in 1999, Café Zimmermann is one of the leading Baroque ensembles in France and in the rest of Europe. Led by violinist Pablo Valetti and harpsichordist Céline Frisch, the ensemble brings together soloists who are eager to bring back to life the artistic atmosphere conveyed by Gottfried Zimmermann’s establishment in 18th century Leipzig. Café Zimmermann collaborated with artists such as Emöke Barath, Giuliano Carmignola, Rupert Charlesworth, Lorenzo Coppola, Maarten Engeltjes, Damien Guillon, Kristina Hammarström, Christian Immler, Roberta Invernizzi, Sophie Karthäuser, Gustav Leonhardt, Lenneke Ruiten, Carolyn Sampson, Andreas Staier, Dominique Visse, as well as the choirs Les Elements, Aedes, Vox Luminis and Accentus.
In residence at the Grand Theatre de Provence since 2011, Café Zimmermann performs in some of the most renowned concert venues and international festivals – Cité de la Musique, Salle Gaveau, Théâtre de la Ville, the Champs Elysées theatre, Innsbruck Festival, the Bach Festival in Leipzig, the Congress Library in Washington, Cervantino Festival – while striving to promote 18th century music to a larger public through creative awareness campaigns. Café Zimmermann regularly performs during international tours, in the United States, Japan, China, as well as South America and Mexico.
The album recordings of Café Zimmermann are acclaimed by the audience and the press, especially its spirited and contrasting renditions of J.S. Bach’s concertante music, which were awarded 5 Diapason d'Or . A new album dedicated to the italian composer Francesco Geminiani, was published in September 2018 under Alpha Classics.
