Explore, reveal, transform

Three action verbs introduce this « Creative Workshop » the Ensemble Les Illuminations, born in 2022 from the vision of cellist and author Aurélie Allexandre d’Albronn to harmonize contemporary music and literature, matter and word. Its name echoes the poetic brilliance of Rimbaud and the musical energy of Britten.

This workshop also fosters a continuous dialogue between eras, disciplines, artists, and works. Interwoven correspondences give rise to new forms, conceived as a total object.

ORI.GI.NAL CR.ÉA.TI.ONS

Works and days

2026

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

Stars in a day

2026

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 the 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

Light and variation

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

Yaoré TALIBART | Violin

Louise DESJARDINS |  Viola

Aurélie ALLEXANDRE D’ALBRONN | Cello and artistic director

Archipelago of whispers
Vera vita viva !

In the press : Le Monde

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

Preview at the Fondation Singer Polignac festival on June 7, 2025.


Le Jardin d’Afrique, lieu-dit pour un non-dit
by Benjamin Attahir –

Chamber opera for three singers and nine instrumentalists.
Autumn 2024

Le Carnaval de Toumaï

Do we know who we are before we cross paths with the Other?

After a chance meeting with a cello, a violin and an accordion, Toumaï, who’s never been able to see beyond the boundaries of his world, is about to find out.  

  • Isabelle JUNCA, author
  • Pascal ZAVARO, original composition
  • Coralie SALONNE, stage adaptation, direction and interventions

Autour de Messagesquisse

The ensemble Les Illuminations brings together 8 cellos in this exciting and challenging programme, from Bach to Boulez including Pärt, Debussy, Barber and Villa-Lobos.  
– Summer 2022, Saint-Céré Festival 

Aurélie ALLEXANDRE D’ALBRONN, solo cello

Renaud GUIEU, Justine METRAL, Hanna SALZENSTEIN, Anthony KONDO, Adrien BELLOM, Raphäel GINZBURG, Irène JOLYS, cellos

Avec Othman LOUATI, conductor (Boulez)
Et Iryna KYSHLIARUK, soprano (Villa-Lobos)

SEE ALSO :

Live : Liberté de Francis Poulenc

Live : Bachianas Brasilieras n°5 
d’Heitor Villa-Lobos

Podcast : Génération France Musique
émission du 07.01.2023

Prism

The aim of our project is to commission a collection of pieces for cello concertante and ensemble, by a variety of European composers, in this mise-en-abime of Boulez’s sound-world.

Messagesquisse by Pierre BOULEZ, recorded and filmed in March 2023 :

Nuits
an original work by Othman Louati

Co-produced with France Musique and broadcast during the programme Création Mondiale.

CO.MI.NG
UP

August 22, 2025

In Variation’s,  for string trio and synthesizer

Brunoy

September 6, 2025

Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

El Duende Theatre / Ivry-sur-seine / Culture Autrement

September 12, 2025

Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

Square Jean Morin / Culture Autrement

September 19, 2025

Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

Jonesy Agency / Culture Autrement

October 2, 2025

Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

Geneva Museum of Art and History

October 7, 2025

Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

Lavoir Moderne Parisien

April 9, 2025

Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

CRR de Cergy Pontoise (Cergy Pontoise Regional Conservatory)

PA.ST

20 May 2025

Le Jardin d’Afrique,
lieu-dit pour un non-dit

Chamber opera by Benjamin ATTAHIR

Morocco / Festival de Musiques Sacrées de Fès

7 June 2025

#Preview  
Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

Festival of the Foundation Singer Polignac

8 June 2025

#Création
Archipelago of Whispers Vera Vita viva !

Maubuisson Abbey / Festival Un Temps Pour Elles

1st March 2025

Around Messagesquisse

Cello octet

Conservatory Raymond Roussel / Tourcoing

22 November 2024

Le Jardin d’Afrique,
lieu-dit pour un non-dit

Chamber opera by Benjamin ATTAHIR
Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing / Théâtre Raymond Devos

11 October 2024

Le Carnaval de Toumaï

An original creation for young audiences
La Scala, Paris

14 May 2024

Le Carnaval de Toumaï

An original creation for young audiences
Espace Jean-Legendre / Théâtres de Compiègne

12 April 2024

Le Jardin d’Afrique,
lieu-dit pour un non-dit

Chamber opera by Benjamin ATTAHIR

End-of-residency presentation / Cité de la Voix, Vézelay

> INFORMATION

22 March 2024

Le Carnaval de Toumaï

An original creation for young audiences
Espace Jean-Legendre / Théâtres de Compiègne

23 May 2023

Le Jardin d’Afrique

World premiere of the version for three cellos and soprano at the Institut du Monde Arabe

AURÉLIE 
ALLEXANDRE
D’ALBRONN

Artistic Director
Cello

MA.NI.FE.STO

LesIlluminations provides a space that nurtures the aspirations of its musicians, ambassadors of heritage repertoires with a strong creative approach to music, literature and poetry.

LesIlluminations is committed to a quest for meaning, based on close communion with the audience, a shared experience that takes them down paths with a reputation for being impenetrable. Which means being warmly thanked for having played Boulez.

LesIlluminations, therefore, represents a world with close ties to the creation of contemporary music, the ambition being to commission a series of works, a collection of concertante pieces for solo cello and ensemble.

LesIlluminations, is, last but not least, an ensemble turned towards other people. Carefully tailored workshops are a central part of our mission, driven by the desire to transmit our passion.

Our workshops make use of third-party venues where we organise activities for all ages, in long-term partnerships with institutions and « artist-teachers ». Because we believe that sharing a piece of music means giving others the chance to listen to it and interpret it, to access its true meaning and to explore it together, using real tools acquired over time.

Our workshops create opportunities for exchange, developed by educational specialists and in unique formats, while taking steps to reach out to the public. Because we believe that sharing a work of art means revealing to the public its own creativity and, in doing so, inviting the artist to re- examine his or her own work.

and receives the support of

CONTACT

enslesilluminations@gmail.com