Bourgie Hall presents

Ensemble Hemiolia

“Handel is as great as the world.” — Franz Liszt

Artists
Denis COMTET, organ

Denis Comtet has been the musical director of the baroque ensemble HEMIOLIA since January 2023 and artistic director of the vocal ensemble Les Discours since 2017.

He developed his career as a choir director in Berlin with the RIAS Kammerchor. He is the choirmaster of recent Harmonia Mundi recordings of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Bach’s Mass in B, conducted by René Jacobs. He has been invited to conduct this ensemble at the Berlin Philharmonic in May 2023 for a creation by composer Franck Schwemmer, as well as works by Francis Poulenc. He is also invited to this city by the Berliner Rundfunkchor and by the Staatsoper Berlin, and he is choir director for several productions of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

In 2022, he began a collaboration with the choir of the Shanghai Opera House (SOH). He was choirmaster of the Concert d’Astrée (founded by Emmanuelle Haïm) from 2005 to 2009, then from 2018 to 2022. He directs this ensemble in numerous productions: at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris (high mass in C by Mozart), at the Lille Opera (campra motets) and on tour in the Hauts-de-France region (Bach motets).

After conducting J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion in 2022 with HEMIOLIA, he is developing a choral project with this ensemble, the first stage of which will take place in June 2023, for the creation of a work by the young composer Lise Borel, Astra , which will be part of a program in homage to the humanist explorer Théodore Monod, mixing works by J.S Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, Henry Purcell and Michael Praetorius.

Emmanuel RESCHE , violin

Emmanuel Resche-Caserta, a Franco-Italian violinist, has acquired a solid reputation as a solo violinist, notably under the baton of William Christie. Since 2017, the Franco-American conductor has invited him to conduct the Les Arts Florissants orchestra at the Paris Opera in Handel’s Jephtha, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and in South Korea, at the Lincoln Center in New York for the Creation of Haydn, on tour in the United States and in Colombia, in Moscow and in Europe.

After graduating from Sciences Po Paris and studying Art History, Emmanuel decided to devote himself entirely to music, traveling to deepen his knowledge of the different schools of baroque violin: he studied with Pablo Valetti at Esmuc (Barcelona), François Fernandez at the CNSMDP, Enrico Onofri at the Palermo Conservatory (Italy), and at the Juilliard School in New York with Monica Huggett.

He is regularly invited as solo violin in ensembles in France (Marguerite Louise), Belgium (Il Gardellino) and Spain, but also as chamber music partner alongside Christophe Coin, Béatrice Martin, Stéphanie-Marie Degand, Hiro Kurosaki, Marcel Ponseele and Jan de Winne, Reinoud Van Mechelen.

In June 2019, Emmanuel won the audition which guarantees him the support of the Jumpstart Jr. Foundation (Amsterdam) and the loan of a magnificent violin by Francesco Ruggeri (1675) for a period of 10 years.

Tami TROMAN, violin
Pamela BERNFELD, viola
Magdalena PROBE, cello
Hubert DEFLANDRE, double bass
Takahisa AIDA, harpischord

Program
Concerti grossi and organ concerti by HANDEL

Thursday, May 11, 2023 at 7:30pm
To purchase your tickets visit: www.mbam.qc.ca/en/bourgie-hall/