An immersive experience that is a sonic and visual tapestry – part ritual, part meditation, part forest. Works and days is a unique concert-installation that revisits the deep connection between human creativity and the cyclical rhythms of the natural world. Inspired by Hesiod’s Works and Days this project draws on a matrimonial and mythic legacy of seasonal labor, ritual, and renewal, now under threat from ecological crisis. Through a radical reworking of 19th-century musical fragments by composers such as Schumann Grieg or Mendelssohn, this concert program is an acoustic landscape that feels both ancient and contemporary. The heart of the project – imagined as a living weave of sound, voice, light and gesture – is a tension between construction and disintegration, echoing the eternal return of the seasons and the fragility of ecosystems. Each musical reworking cracks open a musical readymade and is recomposed into something new – retaining traces of its original identity while being absorbed into a more fluid, poetic ecology in an enveloping visual, object scenography. Each newly written text and music is pregnant with resonances from the past.

Distribution

Diana SOH | Concept and Composition

Isabelle JUNCA · Aurélie ALLEXANDRE d’ALBRONN | text

Ensemble Les Illuminations

Julie MATHEVET | Soprano

Elias GALINDO-LOPEZ | Bird whistle performer and Scenography
Vincent LHERMET | Accordion
Aurélie ALLEXANDRE D’ALBRONN | Cello and Artistic director

In the deep red of his heart, rediscover his own music. Othman Louati dissects a cry, the passion of the poet from Un jour les étoiles (One Day, stars); a modern response to that of Chausson, reflecting on the protest of his friend Bouchor: “My heart flew to you, you took it without return” in Le Poème de l’amour et de la mer (The Poem of Love and the Sea).

Release of Un jour les étoiles for the 42nd Marché de la Poésie 2025
Official selection of the Sète Poetry Festival, Voix Vives.

Distribution

Aurélie ALLEXANDRE D’ALBRONN & Isabelle JUNCA | Libretto

Stéphane DEGOUT | Baritone

Ensemble Les Illuminations in quintet formation with piano

Transcribed for string trio—with minimalist interludes by Othman Louati and haikus by Bashô (17th century) Guillevic and Claudel (20th century), this innovative work reimagines musical and poetic dialogue between Europe and Asia. At its core lies a newly adapted transcription for string trio, crafted by the three musicians. Their interpretation thrives on dynamic exchanges, anchored in G Major, where baroque expertise converges with contemporary sensibilities. French composer Othman Louati enriches this framework with reflective “interludes”, designed as sonic mirrors to Bach’s variations, while haikus by Matsuo Bashô, Eugène Guillevic and Paul Claudel — recited bilingually by the performers—weave through the music, exploring themes of light’s variations. The haiku’s concise form aligns with the Goldberg’s modular variations, creating an interplay between poetry and music. This duality is heightened through dual-language recitations, ensuring each performance remains distinct. By integrating Louati’s minimalist gestures and verses, the work offers audiences a “respiration” between variations, amplifying the music’s kaleidoscopic textures. DNA of the Illuminations, this project transcends mere virtuosity, uniting disciplines in a groundbreaking format — a world first — where historical reverence meets avant-garde experimentation.

Distribution

Iris SCIALOM | Violin

Lou CHANG | Viola

Aurélie ALLEXANDRE D’ALBRONN | Cello and artistic director

Les Illuminations continues its Prisme-s project, with Pierre Boulez’s Messagesquisse as its cornerstone. Following Othman Louati’s Nuits, the ensemble thus enriches its collection of commissions to contemporary composers centred around the concertante cello, and invites Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber, whose ensemble of five instruments evokes a protean strangeness through timbres that summon diverse imaginaries. Beyond the bowed polyphony, the accordion, straddling the sacred and the profane, the Occident and the Far East, resonates with a harpsichord anchored in the Baroque era.

Surrounding this premiere, the Archipelago of Whispers the Archipelago of Whispers interweaves musical epochs and aesthetics, summoning female composers who have all pushed the boundaries of their times. 

An uninterrupted thread is woven between the Baroque freedom of composition of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, the sonic poetry of Kaija Saariaho, the romantic fervour of Ethel Smyth, and the art of silence of Sofia Goubaidoulina.

From the 17th to the 21st century, diverse languages flourish, sketching a sonic landscape where each work becomes both memory and reinvention. From solo to trio, from quartet to ensemble, the music is constructed through dialogue and correspondences.

Distribution

Aurélie ALLEXANDRE D’ALBRONN | Cello

Iris SCIALOM |  Violin

Louise DESJARDINS, atlernating with Lou CHANG | Viola

Jesùs NOGUERA GUILLÉN |  Harpsichord

Jonas VOZBUTAS |  Accordion