Choeur de chambre Mélisme(s), Colette Diard, BanKal Trio & Gildas Pungier
Biography Choeur de chambre Mélisme(s), Colette Diard, BanKal Trio & Gildas Pungier
Gildas Pungier
After training in clarinet, chamber music, harmony, counterpoint, fugue and analysis, Gildas Pungier discovered vocal art and recognised it as his favourite field.
Today, he works primarily as a choral conductor, mainly with the Mélisme(s) professional chamber choir, the Rennes Opera choir and the Psallette de Tréguier children's choir. At the same time, he is a regular guest conductor and assistant conductor in a number of theatres in France (Opéras de Rennes, Opéra du Rhin, Opéra de Nantes-Angers, Grand Théâtre de Reims, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris) and abroad. It is in this context that he has collaborated with numerous conductors (including Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Serge Baudo, Claude Schnitzler, Giuseppe Grazioli, Olari Elts, Anthony Hermus, Grant Llewellyn). He was conductor of Rossini's Otello with Cecilia Bartoli and Ensemble Matheus at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and at the Salzburg Festival in spring 2014. Gildas Pungier is also a regular guest conductor with the Orchestre National de Bretagne, and from 2008 to 2017 was artistic director of the Voce Humana vocal arts festival in Lannion, which he founded.
A keen writer, he has composed two children's operas and made numerous arrangements, including many transcriptions of operas for small ensembles (Donizzetti's Rita, Offenbach's La belle Hélène and La Périchole, Rossini's L'Italienne à Alger, Gounod's Le médecin malgré lui). He has also produced a transcription for wind octet of Haydn's La Création, based on Druschetzky's version. This original version was performed at the Lanvellec and La Chaise Dieu festivals, as well as at the Opéra de Rennes.
In 2019 and 2020 Gildas Pungier will perform a transcription for wind octet of Mozart's Mass in C, as well as a version for choir of Camille Saint-Saens' Carnaval des Animaux.
Choeur de chambre Melisme(s)
founded in 2003 in the Côtes d'Armor region of France, and now in residence at the Opéra de Rennes. Under the impetus of its artistic director, Gildas Pungier, the choir has pursued a varied and demanding musical path since its inception. Gildas Pungier's unique work on sound and the very diversity of the forms taken by the ensemble (a cappella repertoire, works for choir and instrumental ensemble, oratorio, opera) give the Mélisme(s) choir a unique colour and great plasticity, enabling it to perform a wide variety of repertoire with the same high standards, ranging from the great classical composers to contemporary works, from German Romanticism to French and Breton composers (from the late 19th and early 20th centuries). Mélisme(s)'s dual role as chamber choir and opera choir means that the different repertoires it tackles are mutually enriching.
Since its creation, the Mélisme(s) chamber choir has developed both in Brittany (Opéra de Rennes, Festival de Lanvellec and the main venues in the region) and through its performances in prestigious venues (Théâtre des Champs Elysées, La Halle aux Grains in Toulouse, Festivals de la Chaise Dieu, Sablé-sur-Sarthe and Utrecht). The ensemble regularly collaborates with the Ensemble Matheus Jean-Christophe Spinosi, the Orchestre Symphonique National de Bretagne and the ensemble A Venti.
The choir's first CD of Paul Ladmirault's Chansons écossaises, chœurs profanes, released by Skarbo in 2008, won 4 Diapasons. The ensemble's second CD, 'Kanamb Noël', released in 2009, is devoted to a cycle of popular Christmas songs harmonised and orchestrated by Gildas Pungier. The choir's third CD, released in 2013, is devoted to César Franck's 7 Paroles du Christ en Croix and has been awarded 4 Diapasons and 4 stars **** by Classica magazine.
The Mélisme(s) chamber choir's current projects include the transcription for wind octet of Mozart's Mass in C (completed by composer Eric Tanguy) with the ensemble A-Venti, Bach's St John Passion in collaboration with Damien Guillon's Le Banquet Céleste, the creation of a version for choir and narrator of Camille Saint-Saens's Carnaval des Animaux, and G. Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle, to be performed in summer 2019.
The Mélisme(s) chamber choir is supported by the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication / DRAC Bretagne, the Conseil régional de Bretagne, the Conseil Départemental des Côtes d'Armor and the Ville de Rennes.
