Concerts

In counterpoint with its programme of operas, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence presents an ambitious collection of concerts to increase that programme’s impact.

— PREMIERES AND CONTEMPORARY MUSIC TO THE FORE
More than ever, new works inform the programming and its different formats, from the commissions from composers Diana Soh and Charlotte Bray, to the European premieres of works by Amy Williams and Jake Heggie, together with compositions by Hiromi and Kinan Azmeh’s City Band for jazz or the intercultural sessions of the Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée, which are becoming iconic. Contemporary music is also very much on show, covering the most diverse genres and languages, but always with an unparalleled seduction and invention – witness the diverting programme concocted by the JACK Quartet, or the theatrical triptyque staged with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and its director Pierre Bleuse for the final concert of the Instrumental Residency of the Académie.

— GREAT VOICES IN RECITALS AND OPERA IN SEMI-STAGED CONCERT VERSION
Through its offering of prestigious recitals, the Festival gives the greatest voices of today the opportunity to be heard in contexts that are unusual and which bring the best out of their voices. In this way Sondra Radvanovsky and Elīna Garanča bend their large voices to the intimate exercise of the recital, and Lea Desandre and Huw Montague Rendall, accompanied by Thomas Dunford, offer a bouquet of the most beautiful pieces by Monteverdi, Purcell and Händel. For their part, the operas in concert version allow us to deepen the strong relationships with certain first class artists by regularly offering them important roles. It is therefore our great pleasure to welcome Marianne Crebassa, Karine Deshayes and Pene Pati in The Clemency of Titus.

— REPERTOIRE, INNOVATION, SHARING
The Orchestre de Paris is in residence over the week-end of 14 July for two exceptional evenings devoted to monuments of the symphonic repertoire by Mozart and Berlioz, and by Mahler and Schönberg.
The restructuring of the Académie into three Residencies, which is made with the desire to intensify the synergy between the activities and to accompany as well as possible the evolutions of artistic action, is reflected in the innovative final concerts – similar to the concert-performance with electronic music that brings the Multidisciplinary Residency to a close. Emmanuelle Haïm and the Concert d’Astrée accompany the Voice Residency with some of the most beautiful works from the French and Italian Baroque.
Finally, more than ever, the Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée celebrates the values of its foundation on the occasion of its 40th anniversary: namely the dialogue between the cultures of all the countries around the Mediterranean as being a necessary contribution to peace, incarnate in  programmes and moments of captivating creativity.