Fauré’s Requiem

“Tenderness is invincible,” as the saying goes. Fauré’s Requiem, arguably his most masterful work, comforts the bereaved and pays tribute to the victims of the pandemic. The Chariot Jubilee, written by African American Nathaniel Dett, celebrates Black lives through music.

Fauré considered death “a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than a painful experience,” a conviction embodied in his peaceful Requiem. Precise and luminous, the work uses timbre and instruments with restraint, paying tribute to their sound, their voice, and lifting the souls of the living as well as the departed. With the rich and vivid voice of soprano Suzanne Taffot, Nathaniel Dett’s The Chariot Jubilee evokes gospel classics with the expressivity of late Romanticism

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor

Suzanne Taffot, soprano

Suzanne Taffot distinguishes herself with her rich lyric soprano and her moving interpretation.

She is the embodied Mimi (La Bohème de Puccini) which she held with immense success, in March 2019, at the Gärtnerplaztheater in Germany and which she will perform with the FestivalOpéra des Grandes Laurentides in July 2021 under the direction of Maestro Alain Trudel and his Laval Symphony Orchestra.

In January 2020 she performed the roles of the Owl and the Shepherdess (Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges) at the Limoges Opera in France. She also made her second solo appearance with the Kosice Philharmonic Orchestra in Slovakia.

Suzanne Taffot graduated from the University of Montreal under the tutelage of renowned soprano Adrienne Savoie and experienced voice coach Louise Andrée Baril. She is known for her unique, rich and colorful timbre. Her presence and ease on stage as well as her profound, moving and authentic interpretations make Suzanne Taffot a lyrical artist with a definite future.

Philippe Sly, Bass-Baritone

French-Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly has gained international recognition for his “beautiful, blooming tone and magnetic stage presence” (San Francisco Chronicle). Mr. Sly is the first prize winner of the prestigious Concours Musical International de Montréal and a grand prize winner Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions singing the varied repertoire of Mozart, Bach, Handel, Stravinsky and Wagner. Recently, he was awarded Concert of the Year in Romantic, Post-Romantic and Impressionist Music at the 16th annual ceremony of the Prix Opus in Québec.

He has been heard in Handel’s Messiah with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and with the Handel & Haydn Society conducted by Bernard Labadie. Additional concert engagements include Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Mozart’s Requiem with Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Labadie, as well as Bach Matthäus-Passion with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

A native of Montreal, Mr. Sly frequently appears with the Montreal Symphony and Kent Nagano. He has been heard with the OSM in Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande as Golaud, Honegger’s L’Aiglon (recorded for commercial release), Bach’s Johannes-Passion, Méphistophélès in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, as well as songs of Rachmaninoff, Grieg, and Sibelius. As a soloist with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, he has sung performances of Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, both with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Bach’s Matthäus-Passion again with Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal.

Professional chorus singers

Concert Webcast
November 6th at 2:00pm (until November 13, 11:59 pm)

Reserve your online tickets: https://orchestremetropolitain.com