PROJECTS

Ensemble La Favorita is an early music ensemble founded in 2016 by students and alumni of the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague. The name of the ensemble reflects the spirit behind a great number of compositions written for the Habsburg Court in Vienna in the 18th century which were written to celebrate and honour aristocratic women and special occasions such as births, weddings, coronations, birthdays or name-days. Music served to amplify the glory and decorum of the imperial family, as patron of the arts.

Our repertoire focuses on the lesser known soprano Chalumeau, a single-reed woodwind instrument beloved in Vienna in the first half of the 18th century and scored in dozens of cantatas as well as over forty operas and oratorios. The chalumeau could be defined as the baroque cousin of the clarinet, as the first document confirming its use dates back to 1687. Performance on chalumeau has been neglected for nearly 3 centuries, but has re-emerged in today’s historically-informed performance movement…

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ENSEMBLE LEXIKON

Ensemble Lexikon was founded in 2017 in Amsterdam by three young and versatile musicians Giulia Zannin (clarinet), Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde (cello) and Artem Belogurov (piano). This young ensemble is dedicated to discovering new repertoire as well as taking a fresh look at well known music for this setting through the lens of historically informed performance practice. Through research of style and technique and the use of historical instruments as well as modern copies, the ensemble lets their audience hear a sound world that is close to what the composer might have heard at the time the music was performed for the first time. Guided by this approach and the desire to push the boundaries of artistic creativity, the trio explores three centuries of repertoire ranging from the Classical to the Contemporary.

Our chamber music program BEETHOVEN AND HIS RIVALS follows the rivalry between  three wellestablished composers and virtuosos who animated the early-19th century Viennese scene: Joseph Wölfl from Salzburg, (considered to be Beethoven’s equal and one of the protagonists of a famous and exciting public pianistic duel with Beethoven), the Viennese Anton Eberl (Mozart’s protegé) and Ludwig van BeethovenWe perform on period instruments Wölfl’s only piece for fortepiano and cello, the Grand Duo Op. 31, alongside with the early romantic Trio Op.36 by Eberl and the famous “Gassenhauer Trio” op.11 by Beethoven, where in the final movement he uses a popular song whistled on the streets of Vienna.

CALLIOPE

Calliope is a new and an innovative ensemble and a platform of exploration of the virtuosic and fascinating repertoire for chalumeau in the 18th century. Beautiful music was written for it, especially in Vienna (Fux), Darmstadt (Graupner), Hamburg (Telemann) and Dresden (Zelenka). The combination of two chalumeaux, violin and continuo provides unlimited possibilities for original and adapted repertoire. The core of the ensemble consists of five musicians from four different countries who know each other from their many years of concert practice.

Calliope is the Latin name for the red-throated nightingale: a relatively unknown but beautiful bird, originally from Siberia, which is very rarely seen in the Netherlands. Wikipedia describes the voice as follows: “sweet, complex, piercing but slightly melancholic warbles, in which clear flutes are mixed with shrill notes”. Calliope is also one of the nine muses, the daughters of Zeus. Her name literally means “with the beautiful voice”; Ovid tells in his Metamorphoses of a singing competition that Calliope wins with conviction …

Giulia Zannin & Diederik Ornée, chalumeaux
Ivan Iliev, violin
Cassandra Luckhardt, cello
Vaughan Schlepp, harpsichord

© Copyright 2018 Giulia Zannin