About
Cécile Chartrain
Originally from Brittany (France), Cécile studied historical oboes, harpsichord and basso continuo with Josep Domenech, Menno Van Delft and Kris Verhelst at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, then at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, with Olivier Baumont, Blandine Rannou and Antoine Torunczyk. With a passion for vocal accompaniment, she is also a graduate of Stéphane Fuget’s Baroque vocal conducting class. She perfected her skills with artists such as Pierre Hantaï, Alfredo Bernardini and Laurent Stewart.
In 2018 and 2019, Cécile is a prizewinner from the Vlaamse vereniging harpsichord competition and the Concours international d’ensembles de musique ancienne de Lausanne with her ensemble La Chicane. She performs as a soloist or with renowned ensembles and conductors (Netherlands Bach Society, Opéra Royal de Versailles, Le Concert Spirituel… ) and in festivals and new venues such as Oudemuziek Festival Utrecht, MA Brugge, Innsbruck Festwochen der Alten Muzik, Internationale Händel Festspiele Göttingen, Rijksmuseum, Muziekgebouw, El Cine Teatro Ateneo (Argentina), Lotte Concert Hall (Korea), Il Palazzo del Capitaniato (Italy), Château de Versailles, Salle Cortot…
In 2022, she co-founded Marilou, an ensemble of versatile musicians and multi-instrumentalists, with Gabrielle Rubio, Samuel Bricault, Agnès Boissonnot-Guilbault, and Hélène Richaud. Through arrangements and transcriptions, they explore a varied repertoire ranging from two to five instruments. They perform in France and abroad (Folle Journée de Nantes, Bach en Combrailles, Midis-Minimes, etc.) and their first album was released in February 2024. They are currently in residence at the Singer-Polignac Foundation.
Discography
Doux Silence
Between court arias, sonatas and cantatas, you will accompany in this programme the ups and downs of a shepherdess sighing in the woods, sometimes courted, soon abandoned. Seduced by freedom and caught up in her feelings...
Un Italien à Paris
Spring 1733: Giovanni Battista
Somis embarks on a long journey
from Turin, his hometown,
to Paris, where he performs
with the famous Concert Spirituel
at the Tuileries Palace, achieving
great success.
Le Quattro Stagioni
Vivaldi was already a renowned opera composer in Venice and throughout Italy, but he gained exceptional notoriety throughout Europe when the concerti constituting his Quattro Stagioni were published in Amsterdam.
Dis-moi Vénus
Venus, goddess of sensuality and great orchestrator of pleasures, pulls the strings of opera characters as if they were puppets in the land of Tendre. With great delectation, Marie Perbost invokes the goddess and the heroines of French opera from the century of Louis XV to embody all the victims of passions unleashed by Aphrodite.
Mozart - Pergolèse
These two masterpieces bound through style and history come to life with colourful plots: lightness, falsehoods and comical settings create delightfully bubbly situations for the tyrannical servant and naive shepherds, from which Pergolesi and Mozart derived the best musical effects.
The Crown
To mark the Coronation of King Charles III, we have brought together the most famous pieces of music from the coronations of James II in 1685 and George II in 1727. The masterpieces by Purcell and Handel display an extraordinarily evocative force: their “Grand Style” put a magnificent stamp on the Ceremonial of the Crown of England.