The Odyssey Begins

Migros Change Rive
Rue de Rive 20 – 1204 Genève
Monday to Friday: 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Grâce à un travail soutenu, les chanteurs du Chœur Pro Arte sont amenés à aborder des œuvres orchestrales, a capella, avec accompagnement de piano ou d’orgue, dans des répertoires souvent exigeants, larges et variés.

Pro Arte développe une intense activité d’exploration musicale. Il propose autant des œuvres très connues que moins jouées, souvent de compositeurs suisses et contemporains. Il se produit régulièrement avec l’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, le Sinfonietta ou l’Ensemble Baroque du Léman, la formation de Pierre Amoyal ou l’organiste Benjamin Righetti, principalement en Suisse romande, mais également ailleurs en Suisse ou à l’étranger, comme à Kazan en Russie en 2018.

Pro Arte’s mission is to share great music with as many people as possible, often participating in innovative projects and performing in non-traditional settings. The ensemble has put on concerts for disabled people at Association La Branche in Mollie-Margot and teamed up with the children’s choir of Cossonay’s École de Musique to sing Christmas songs and Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir. It has also taken part in the Paléo festival in Nyon, serenading a crowd of thousands with Rossini’s Stabat Mater, as well as free open-air concerts in Lausanne and Montreux, where it performed Mozart’s Requiem, accompanied by four accordionists.

Pro Arte not only seeks out new audiences but also promotes little-known, often challenging works. Recently, the ensemble brought together Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Magnificat with the Requiem by his brother, Johann Christian Bach. In 2017, it performed Arthur Honegger’s Nicolas de Flüe in honour of the 600th birthday of the work’s namesake, Nicholas of Flüe, the patron saint of Switzerland. In 2018, Pro Arte celebrated Julien François Zbinden’s 100th anniversary with a concert featuring the composer’s oratorio, Terra dei.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Pro Arte continued to perform, collaborating with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne to present the cantatas from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Lausanne cathedral in 2020. It also participated in the latest edition of Le Mont musical festival with Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem.

The 2022-2023 season marks Pro Arte’s 75^th anniversary. Concerts include the performance of a work commissioned from Lausanne-born composer Valentin Villard, based on texts by Stephane Blok and Blaise Hoffman, at the Théâtre du Jorat in Mézières, alongside the Sinfonietta.

Il a notamment collaboré avec le Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, tous les orchestres des radios britannique et allemande, le Berliner Philharmoniker, le Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, l’Orchestre national de France, l’Orquesta Nacional de España, ainsi que le Cleveland Orchestra et les orchestres symphoniques de Philadelphie, Boston et Chicago, sous la direction de chefs d’orchestre tels que Christoph von Dohnányi, Kurt Masur, Klaus Mäkelä, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, Susanna Mälkki, Vladimir Jurowski et Andris Nelsons.

Alongside an extensive repertoire comprising all the core concertos, Gerhardt is also the go-to soloist for contemporary composers. Most recently, he premiered Julian Anderson’s Grawemeyer Award-winning cello concerto, Litanies, with Orchestre National de France, as well as Brett Dean’s Cello Concerto which he premiered with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Berliner Philharmoniker, and played with New York Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra amongst others.

Highlights in the 2023/24 season include Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with Marin Alsop, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln with Susanna Mälkki, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Andrew Manze, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Simone Young.

A prolific recording artist, Gerhardt has received several awards for his recordings including an ECHO Klassik Award in 2008 for Reger: Cello Sonatas with Markus Becker under Hyperion, a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2015 for his recording of Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto with Myung-Whun Chung and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under Deutsche Grammophon (for which he was also shortlisted for a Gramophone Award), and an International Classical Music Award in 2021 for Shostakovich: Cello Concertos with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Jukka-Pekka Saraste under Hyperion.

Également passionné de musique de chambre, Alban Gerhardt se produit régulièrement avec le pianiste Steven Osborne, entre autres. Ces dernières années, il a collaboré à de nouveaux projets artistiques, tels que « Love in Fragments » – une union poétique de musique, de mouvement, de sculpture et de parole – avec la violoniste Gergana Gergova, la chorégraphe Sommer Ulrickson et le sculpteur Alexander Polzin.

Il poursuivra ces collaborations tout au long de la saison 2023/24, en se produisant en tant qu’artiste à l’honneur au festival d’Aldeburgh, et avec le Quintette Alliage dans la série Kammerkonzerte de l’Orchestre philharmonique de Duisbourg, où il sera artiste en résidence pour la saison.

Gerhardt is passionate about sharing his discoveries with audiences far beyond the traditional concert hall, undertaking outreach projects across Europe and the US that have involved performances and workshops not only in schools and hospitals, but also public spaces and young offender institutions. Additionally, he has a strong online presence, teaching and interacting regularly with cello students worldwide through Patreon.

Alban Gerhardt plays a Matteo Gofriller cello dating from 1710.

She began her solo career during her studies, making her debut in Asia (Bhutan) in 2018, in the role of Serpina (La serva padrona, Pergolesi), a production by the Opéra de Lausanne given on the occasion of the inauguration of the Royal Textile Academy of Thimphu. She was soon engaged at the Grand Théâtre de Genève (Blumenmädchen in Parsifal - Wagner), at the Opéra Grand Avignon (Mélusine in Les Chevaliers de la table ronde - Hervé), and in March 2022, she made her Paris debut on the stage of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées as Despina in Così fan tutte (Mozart), in the new production directed by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm (Le Concert d'Astrée), which then traveled to Caen. Shortly afterwards, she was engaged at the Glyndebourne Festival (UK) to understudy the role of Thérèse in Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias. She returned to the Opéra de Lausanne stage in October 2022, making her debut as Adina in L'Elisir d'amore (Donizetti). Following this, the Glyndebourne Festival invited her to make her stage debut as Giannetta and understudy Adina in L'Elisir d'amore (Donizetti) during the 2023 season. Prior to this, she returned to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, then to the Opéra National de Bordeaux and Rouen to play Clorinda, between January and April 2023, in a production for young audiences of La Cenerentola (Rossini).

Her career has also been marked by significant events outside the theaters and concert halls. In 2016, she took part in the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games with the Swiss premiere given at the House of Switzerland during the opening week of the Games. She then performed the solo part of the Nations League anthem for UEFA at the competition's launch ceremony in 2018. On a national level (in Switzerland), she was also invited to perform at the installation and swearing-in ceremony for the new authorities of the canton of Vaud in 2022.

She won the 1st prize of the Kattenburg competition in 2019 at the Opéra de Lausanne and the 2nd prize of the Corsica Lirica competition in 2021. She created her own show, Odyssée Onirique, which premiered at the BCV Concert Hall in Lausanne in 2021, and also released her first album, Incitation au voyage - parfums, couleurs et sonorités d'ailleurs in 2019, both of which reflect her Latin origins, which she loves to combine with her operatic career.

The milestones of her career have included Idomeneo (Idamante) staged and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Graz and Zurich, Paisiello’s Il Matrimonio Inaspettato (Contessa) under Riccardo Muti at Salzburg Festival, La Damnation de Faust (Marguerite) under Sir Roger Norrington in Leipzig, and L’incoronazione di Poppea (Ottavia) at the Berlin State Opera and at La Monnaie in Brussels, one of her numerous collaborations with René Jacobs. Chappuis has been acclaimed for her performances in the title role of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas throughout Europe. She is featured at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Theater an der Wien, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro Real in Madrid and Grand Théâtre de Genève.

Egalement très active au concert et en récital, Marie-Claude Chappuis s’est dernièrement produite avec l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, le Giardino Armonico, le New Japan Philharmonic, l’orchestre du Gewandhaus, l’orchestre du Maggio Fiorentino et le London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Sa riche discographie comprend notamment La Passion selon Saint Matthieu sous la direction de Riccardo Chailly (Decca), La Clemenza di Tito (Annio) avec René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi), Idomeneo (Idamante) avec Nikolaus Harnoncourt (DVD), la Brockes-Passion de Telemann, le Requiem de Mozart et la Messe en Si de J.S. Bach avec René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi), la Neuvième Symphonie de Beethoven avec Giovanni Antonini (Sony Classical) ainsi qu’un album solo avec le luthiste Luca Pianca (« Sous l’empire d’Amour », Deutsche Harmonia Mundi), un album consacré aux chants populaires suisses (« Au coeur des Alpes“, Sony Classical), Les Fables de La Fontaine avec La Chapelle Harmonique (B-Records), « Sur l’Alpe » deuxième saison de chants populaires suisses (Musicadorata) ainsi que la 9^ème symphonie de Beethoven CD et DVD sous la direction de Zubin Mehta ( Dynamic)