Anna Besson. Myriam Rignol, Jean Rondeau
Biography Anna Besson. Myriam Rignol, Jean Rondeau
Anna Besson
An active and versatile performer, Anna Besson has spent several years developing her experience as a soloist and orchestral musician within ensembles such as the orchestra of the Opéra de Paris, La Chambre Philharmonique, Le Concert Spirituel, Insula Orchestra, Le Concert d'Astrée, Orfeo 55, La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roi, and as a founding member of quartet nevermind. She has also played in such prestigious concert halls and festivals as Boston Early Music Festival, Utrecht Early Music Festival, MA Festival Bruges, Salzburger Festspiele, Royaumont, Via Staelle, Festival Mezzo, Barbican Center, Melbourne Recital Center, Hamburg Philharmony, Opera de Paris, and more.
As a founding member of a nocte temporis, conducted by Reinoud Van Mechelen, Anna searches for ways to transcend the 18th- and 19th-century chamber music repertoire with flute. Erbarme dich, their début CD on the Alpha Classics label, has been released to critical acclaim (CHOC de Classica, five Diapasons, the Caecilia Prize) and features works by J.S. Bach for tenor and traverso.
As a soloist, her discography includes Telemann's Concerto for traverso and recorder with Erik Bosgraaf (Brilliant classics), Molter's Concerto for traverso in D major with Die Kölner Akademie (CPO), The Dubhlinn Gardens - 18th-century Irish music with a nocte temporis (Alpha), and Telemann’s Parisian Quartets with quartet nevermind (Alpha Classics). She also recorded her first solo album for romantic flute with fortepianist Olga Pashchenko featuring works by Beethoven, Kuhlau, Doppler and Walckiers (Alpha).
Passionate about traditional music and dance, she has extensively researched the Irish flute and Irish repertoire of the 18th and 19th centuries. Equally at home on the traverso, modern flute and romantic flute, Anna is regularly invited to give masterclasses in France and abroad and was a jury member of the International Van Wassenaer Chamber Music Competition in Utrecht in 2018.
Winner of the Cziffra Foundation's annual auditions, Anna Besson studied modern and early flutes at the Conservatoires Supérieurs de Musique de Paris and Geneva.
Myriam Rignol
Originally from Perpignan, where she began her musical education, Myriam Rignol studied at the CNSMD de Lyon, the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. She is regularly invited to appear as a soloist or with ensembles or orchestras in many countries, and has won many international prizes, including First Prize at the 2010 International Early Music Competition in Yamanashi (Kōfu, Japan) and Second Prize and Audience Prize at the International Musica Antiqua Competition 2011 in the MA Festival (Bruges).
She is a founder member of the ensemble Les Timbres with violinist Yoko Kawakubo and harpsichordist Julien Wolfs, which received First Prize and the Best Contemporary Creation Prize at the prestigious Bruges Chamber Music Competition (2009). The group now performs regularly throughout Europe and in Japan and has made several recordings.
A qualified teacher of early music (CA), she founded in 2011 the viola da gamba class at the Conservatoire du Grand Besançon, where she currently gives classes.
Jean Rondeau
“Rondeau, 24, is one of the most natural performers one is likely to hear on a classical music stage these days. Affectation and ostentation are not part of his makeup and, once seated at the instrument, he and the harpsichord become one. Everything after that is music-making that is masculine, direct and richly human. Rondeau is a master of his instrument with the sort of communicative gifts normally encountered in musicians twice his age. He internalizes the music he plays so completely that any interpretive ambivalence or miscalculation is unthinkable. The sincerity and modesty of his delivery are the keys to its power.” (The Washington Post)
Described as “one of the most natural performers one is likely to hear on a classical music stage” by the Washington Post, Jean Rondeau is a veritable global ambassador for his instrument. His outstanding talent and innovative approach to keyboard repertoire have been critically acclaimed, marking him out as one of today’s leading harpsichordists.
Following a year that saw his debut with the Orchestre de Paris performing Poulenc’s Concerto Champêtre, Rondeau’s 2021/22 season includes concerto engagements with the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, a concert tour with the Freiburger Barockorchester, and a C.P.E. Bach tour with the Kammerorchester Basel with Rondeau play-conducting from the harpsichord. In the realm of chamber music, Rondeau shares the stage with Nicolas Altstaedt at the Berlin Staatsoper and re-reunites with his fellow co-founders of the Nevermind Quartet for recording projects and performances in Madrid, Dortmund and la Chaux-de-Fonds. He also rejoins long-time collaborator Thomas Dunford following recent appearances at the Stockholm Early Music Festival, the Festival Concentus Moraviae, the Ribeira Sacra Guitar Festival, the Haapsalu Festival and the Hindsgavl Festival last summer.
A notable highlight throughout the year is Rondeau’s tour of major European venues performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations – a project long in the making; emphasising sustainability with a “green itinerary” to highlight his environmental commitments, it includes visits to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Frankfurt Opera House, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Geneva’s Victoria Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, and London’s Wigmore Hall. Rondeau also features in multiple performances at the Salle de la Musique in La Chaux-de-Fonds as part of a six-concert “artist portrait” series in conjunction with a joint residence with the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève.
Rondeau is signed to Erato as an exclusive artist, with whom he has recorded several albums championing ancient music. His latest solo album Melancholy Grace (2021) was acclaimed as “soulful […] varied, [and] wonderful” by the NY Times and “sublime” by Le Devoir. Rondeau’s previous album Barricades (2020), recorded with Thomas Dunford, garnered widespread critical acclaim, as did his 2019 Scarlatti Sonata recording, which won that year’s Diapason d’Or de l’Année. Earlier publications include his debut album Imagine (2015), which received the Choc de Classica and recognition from the Académie Charles Cros; Vertigo (2016, winner of that year’s Diapason d’Or), which paid tribute to two Baroque composers from his native France: Jean- Philippe Rameau and Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer; and Dynastie (2017), which explores keyboard concertos by Bach and his sons Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christian.
New music is also important to Jean Rondeau. In 2018, he played the world premiere (BBC commission) of Eve Risser’s Furakèla for solo harpsichord at the BBC PROMS, having composed his first original film score two years earlier for Christian Schwochow’s Paula, which was premiered at the 2016 Locarno Film Festival.
In addition to his engagements as a soloist, recitalist and conductor, Rondeau also regularly gives masterclasses around the world. Rondeau is in high demand as a teacher and has given masterclasses across the world from the Gstaad Academy to the University of Hong Kong.
Rondeau studied harpsichord with Blandine Verlet at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, followed by training in continuo, organ, piano, jazz and improvisation, and conducting. He completed his musical training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In 2012, he became one of the youngest performers ever to take First Prize at the International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges (MAfestival 2012), aged 21.
