2024-2025 Season

L’Harmonie des saisons

Vocal & Instrumental Ensemble with International Guest Artists

Eric Milnes & Mélisande Corriveau, Directors

presents our 2024-2025 Season

We are thrilled to offer our audience more listening pleasure!

Your presence at these events, and your generous Donations, assure our continued activities and successes!

Sacred music in Sacred spaces

FAURÉ CELEBRATION

Requiem, Cantique de Jean Racine & Messe Basse for women’s voices

To commemorate the centenary of Gabriel Fauré’s death, L’Harmonie des saisons, soloists, choir and orchestra on period instruments will perform the composer’s magnificent Requiem. Fauré’s landmark work will be accompanied by the Cantique de Jean Racine and a Messe basse for women’s voices. For the occasion, a children’s choir will also join the ensemble!

Gabriel Fauré’s magnificent Requiem is distinguished by its intimate, nuanced expressiveness. L’Harmonie des saisons will reveal this masterpiece in the authentic manner of its 19th-century creation by Fauré himself. The work is rarely performed in its original “church” version of January 1888, with vocal forces and orchestra on period instruments adapted to this context.

The Cantique de Jean Racine is a composition by Gabriel Fauré to the text “Verbe égal au Très-Haut” by poet Jean Racine. It is one of Fauré’s earliest published pieces. He wrote it as a 19 year old student at the Ecole Niedermeyer de Paris, winning him the first prize in composition in 1865. The piece is an extraordinary example of the young composer’s unique talent.

The Messe basse pour voix de femmes has a most interesting history which charts the course of Fauré’s compositional career over a 25 year period. It was initially conceived in 1881 as collaboration with fellow composer André Messager, in which three of the five movements were composed by Fauré, and the other two by Messager. It was written for three part female choir, accompanied by organ and a solo violin. In 1906 Fauré returned to the work to fulfill a publishing contract. He replaced the Messager movements with newly composed music of his own. The intimate and expressive Messe has an undeniable charm, and is rarely heard in modern performances.

- - Saturday, November 2 at 2:00 pm, Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac

Abbaye tickets

Messiah: an oratorio by G. F. Handel

L’Harmonie des saisons, soloists, choir and orchestra on period instruments, presents its annual Christmas concert: G.F. Handel’s THE MESSIAH, on tour! This program celebrating the Nativity will bring together some 40 artists from Canada, the United States and South America.

This timeless work, composed in just 24 days by Handel, has captivated audiences and music lovers alike since its premiere in April 1742. Join our artists as they share the magic of this great work from the sacred baroque repertoire!

Soloist:

Eric Milnes, direction & harpsichord
Denise Torre-Ormeno – soprano
Nicholas Burns – male alto
Philippe Gagné – tenor
Sumner Thompson – baritone
William Kraushaar – bass

- Friday, December 8 at 7:30 pm, Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre, Ottawa (Music & Beyond)
- Saturday, December 9 at 2:00 pm, Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac

Ottawa tickets

Abbaye tickets

Special Concerts

Festival Burlington Baroque

September 26th thru September 29th, 2024, Burlington, US

L’Harmonie des saisons soloists and baroque orchestra on period instruments will be the ensemble in residence at the brand-new Burlington Baroque Festival, to be held September 26-29 at St. Paul’s Cathedral Church in Burlington, Vermont. A great weekend of music awaits us on the shores of magnificent Lake Champlain! Come here these magnificent works from the repertoire:

Thursday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI –Vespers of 1610

Friday, September 27, 7:30 p.m.
G.F. HANDEL – Opera Acis & Galatea

Saturday, September 28, 2:00 p.m.
BEATLES BAROQUE

Saturday, September 28, 7:30 p.m.
VIVALDI, MARCELLO, HANDEL, BACH – Concerti Stravaganza!

Sunday, September 29, 4:00 p.m.
J.S. BACH – Magnificat & Brandenburg Concertos

More info

Past Concerts

REQUIEM: Gabriel Fauré (on period instruments)
& La Messe des morts by Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Fauré’s Requiem, this great masterpiece of the French repertoire, will be presented on period instruments, with the famous Messe des morts by Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier as a complementary program.

Gabriel Fauré’s magnificent Requiem is distinguished by its intimate, nuanced expressiveness. L’Harmonie des saisons will reveal this masterpiece in the authentic manner of its 19th-century premiere by Fauré himself. Indeed, the work is rarely performed in its original “church” version of January 1890, with vocal forces and orchestra on period instruments adapted to this context.

When combined with the deeply moving Messe des morts by 17th-century composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier, we can immediately grasp the complementary nature of these compositions, and hear the extent to which Fauré was influenced by his Parisian musical predecessor.

Saturday, November 4 at 2:00 pm, Abbaye de St-Benoit-du Lac
Sunday, November 5 at 3:00 pm, College Street Congregational Church, Burlington, VT