2024 INSTRUMENTAL RESIDENCY

The Instrumental Residency of the Académie du Festival d’Aix is designed for trained musicians who wish to specialize, and develop their skills, in a multifaceted contemporary repertoire with a strong narrative dimension. It also offers residents an inspiring work environment to help them integrate new instrumental techniques within an open-minded and experimental setting.

The return to the Festival d’Aix of the Ensemble intercontemporain, who participated in several editions around the year 2000, offers the Académie an opportunity to further refine its role as an intergenerational meeting place — a role it has played since it was created in 1998. Under artistic director Pierre Bleuse, who was recently appointed leader of the Ensemble, the Instrumental Residency is structured around private and public master classes, sessions of improvisation, group musical events, and outreach activities. It also offers its participants various concert opportunities and numerous sources of inspiration, since it includes an immersion in the heart of the Festival d’Aix. This framework for dialogue, experimentation and musical refinement between established artists from different generations allows the residents to reflect upon a broader interpretation of their profession.

Selected residents will include twelve instrumentalists who wish to devote themselves to the repertoire of ensemble music, and a woman conductor who intends to specialize in the contemporary instrumental and opera repertoire. These artists will be accompanied throughout their stay by three musicians from the Ensemble Intercontemporain, and by guest artists, such as soprano Claron McFadden and composer Diana Soh. The residency will conclude with a side-by-side concert by the mentoring and guest musicians, who will perform a new piece by Diana Soh, making its world premiere; Olga Neuwirth’s ...miramondo multiplo...; and Michael Jarrell’s Cassandra.

This residency has been conceived of as a space for artistic exchange around, reflection on, and practices in instrumental music, repertoires, creation, and music as a universal language. It encourages participants to consider their profession in an ever-changing world, in which curiosity and an open mind are key.

Adami, a long-standing partner of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, once again proves its commitment to performing artists with its support for the residency for women conductors. Through this programme, which the Académie created in 2021, Adami participates in the training, promotion and career development of a new generation of women conductors.

Mentors Artists

-    Ensemble Intercontemporain
-    Pierre Bleuse — Artistic director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain
-    Claron McFadden — Soprano

Guest Artist

-    Diana Soh — Composer

Resident Artists

-   Sami Bounechada — percussions
-   Miguel Conde Calvo — trumpet
-   Benjamin Degrande — horn
-   Manuela Diaz Henao — tuba
-   Christian Fisalli — horn
-   Abel François — trombone
-   Julia Silvana Graf — bassoon
-   Maria Constanza Ibarra Olalla — piano
-   Maria Alejandra Jiménez — violin
-    Elisabeth Lee — conductor
-   Sulivan Loiseau — double bass
-    Jaime Peña Martínez — clarinet
-    Lisa Schreiber — saxophone

Public Events

-    Outreach actions: week of 24 to 28 June
-    Saturday 29 June — Concert #1: Repertory to be defined
-    Friday 5 July — Concert #2: final concert with the Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Pierre Bleuse and the Conductor in residency.

Repertory

- Concert of 29 June 2024: Repertory to be defined
- Concert of 5 July 2024:
Diana Soh, for voice and instrumental ensemble, on a text by Jamie R Currie, commissioned by the Académie of the Festival d’Aix and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, world premiere - Conducted by the conductor in residency
Olga Neuwirth, …miramondo multiplo… for trumpet solo and ensemble (2006) - Conducted by the conductor in residency
Michael Jarrell, Cassandre, monodrama for an actress, instrumental and electronic ensemble (1993-1994) - Conducted by Pierre Bleuse

DATES

Arrival on Sunday 23/06/2024
Beginning of the residency on Monday 24/06/2024
End of the residency on Friday 5/07/2024
Departure on Saturday 6/07/2024

With the support of Engie Foundation