Desde 1979, Dominique Vellard ha sido el motor y la inspiración para el Ensemble Gilles Binchois, que en ya casi tres décadas de investigación e interpretación ha ido creando algunas de las grabaciones de absoluta referencia de los repertorios a los que se ha dedicado, en especial de la Edad Media y el Renacimiento. Una extraordinaria colección de grabaciones dedicadas a la música de Machaut, a la Escuela de Notre-Dame, a la Escuela Borgoñona o a las primeras polifonías ha ido viendo la luz en sellos como Virgin Classics, Harmonic Records, Ambroisie o Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, discos que siempre han sido calurosamente recibidos por el público, la crítica y el mundo de la musicología. El Ensemble Gilles Binchois actúa con regularidad a lo largo y ancho de Europa, además de en Marruecos, India, Malasia o los Estados Unidos.
La pasión de Dominique Vellard por la música antigua despertó durante sus años como cantante en la Maîtrise de Notre-Dame en Versalles. Más recientemente, Vellard ha ampliado sus intereses a otros repertorios –el norte y el sur de la India, o las tradiciones bretonas y españolas– y también ha desarrollado una especial predilección por compositores como Monteverdi o el mucho menos conocido Guillaume Nivers (un contemporáneo de Charpentier). En todas estas exploraciones vocales, su inconfundible voz de tenor marca el camino. Sin embargo, para su presentación en Glossa, y en consonancia con los deseos de nuestro sello de fomentar nuevas visiones artísticas, Vellard eligió una nueva faceta de su rica personalidad musical. Así, en Vox Nostra Resonet, Vellard aparece como el compositor de cinco piezas vocales realizadas para un reducido grupo de voces de su Ensemble Gilles Binchois. La temática, profundamente religiosa (Stabat mater, Las siete últimas palabras de Cristo en la Cruz), bebe de sus propias experiencias espirituales tanto como de su intenso interés por la monodia y la polifonía de las tradiciones orientales y occidentales.
Otras caras de la actividad de Dominique Vellard incluyen su participación en el Ensemble Vox Suavis (junto a Ana-Isabel Arnaz), dedicado principalmente a los repertorios tradicionales españoles, o el trío Neuma (con Marcus Weiss, saxofones, y Raitis Grigalis, barítono), que se centra en la exploración de los puntos de contacto entre el canto arcaico y las vanguardias. Vellard enseña en la Schola Cantorum Basiliensis desde 1982, y dirige los Rencontres Internationales de Musique Médiévale de Thoronet y el festival Meslanges de Printemps de Dijon.
Since starting making recordings for Glossa in 2007 Dominique Vellard has been demonstrating the broad range of interests which have been so influential over the thirty years of the career of his Ensemble Gilles Binchois and which help to make up this complex musical personality. From the earliest polyphonies interspersed with Gregorian Chant (in L’Arbre de Jessé and the reissued Music and Poetry in St Gallen) to 21st century compositions from Vellard himself and Jean-Pierre Leguay (in Vox nostra resonet and Motets croisés) by way of the 17th century polyphony of Monteverdi, Schütz and Frescobaldi, some of the facets of Vellard’s continuing interest in religious music have been reflected on the label. [read more...]
It is not only discerning music lovers around the globe who are giving a warm welcome to the recordings which are being published on Glossa; critical approval in the specialist media has been joining in as well. One example of the latter is the newly-instigated International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) which, for its inaugural 2011 edition, has chosen no less than nine of Glossa’s recent releases in its initial nominations. [read more...]
Central to the research into and the performance of early music since the beginnings of the renewed interest into music from previous centuries the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) remains an extraordinary powerhouse of talent ranging over music from the early Middle Ages through to the 19th century. Today its pupils are legion, as too are its teachers, amply fulfilling the aspirations of Paul Sacher when he founded the institution in Switzerland in 1933. In an agreement recently made between Glossa and the SCB fresh new life is being breathed into the desire to bring the fruits of all this musical activity to a much wider worldwide audience through recordings. [read more...]
“It is the same effect as when you see the sun shining through stained-glass windows in a church: suddenly all the colours are singing.”
After nearly three decades of carving out a niche (as rich as Romanesque statuary found in the Burgundy where he lives and works), Dominique Vellard has returned with a new vigour for performing (and recording), whether it is with his colleagues from the Ensemble Gilles Binchois or as a solo singer. The tenor voice of this deeply-thinking musician has the capacity to explore and explain the messages and subtleties of liturgical traditions that range far beyond the Western tradition. [read more...]
I began to compose seriously back in 1999. Prior to that I always liked making song arrangements or fauxbourdons, or writing pieces ‘in the style’ of, for instance, 14th or 15th century songs. Very often in the medieval field, of course, we need to add some voices or to complete some defective parts. I had no real desire to compose – I didn’t think that it was my field. I was a singer, after all, and music from the past is so good, whether it was from composers of the 17th century or Ligeti. Then, one day, in Sheffield in England, I was asked by Peter Cropper of The Lindsays whether there were any chants in existence that could accompany Haydn’s Seven Last Words. On not finding any interesting pieces in the repertory and whilst being at home, I started writing three-part pieces – for my wife, my daughter and myself. I was I bit surprised to see that it was working and on finishing the compositions I found that they had some sense! [read more...]