Le portail de glace

Founded in 1942 by Victor Desarzens, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (OCL) has become one of the most sought-after chamber orchestras in Europe. After six years under the artistic direction of American conductor Joshua Weilerstein, the OCL is now led by the celebrated French violinist Renaud Capuçon. Comprising some forty musicians, the Orchestra’s vast repertoire ranges from early Baroque to contemporary works.

The OCL was soon invited to perform abroad, in the most renowned concert halls and festivals. It took part in the second Aix-en-Provence Festival and several editions of the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. His tours of Germany and the United States have been resounding successes, as have his concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the BBC Proms in London, the Wiener Konzerthaus and the Berliner Philharmoniker. In the 2023-2024 season, the OCL will perform in Madrid, Barcelona and, for the first time, at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Throughout its existence, the OCL has performed with leading soloists. These include Clara Haskil, Alfred Cortot, Walter Gieseking, Edwin Fischer, Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu, Martha Argerich, Nikolai Lugansky, Daniel Barenboim and Frank Peter Zimmermann. The OCL has also always attracted the most interesting conductors of their time, including Paul Hindemith, Günter Wand, Christoph Eschenbach, Ton Koopman, Jeffrey Tate, Bertrand de Billy, Simone Young and Daniel Harding.

The OCL boasts an extensive discography: from the complete operas of Haydn in the 1970s-1980s conducted by Antal Dorati to the Beethoven and Mozart concertos with Christian Zacharias, not to mention recordings dedicated to Schoenberg and Webern (with Heinz Holliger) and Spohr and Weber (with Paul Meyer).

Graduating with the highest honors from the prestigious schools of Lausanne and Zurich, Hélène Walter trained under the guidance of Teresa Berganza, Helmut Deutsch, John Fiore, Luisa Castellani, Christian Immler, and has performed under the baton of Ton Koopman and Michel Corboz. After her studies, she further refined her skills with renowned interpreters such as Alessandra Rossi, Heidi Brunner, Raul Gimenez, and François Le Roux.

Hélène Walter has enjoyed a brilliant international career, performing on prestigious stages such as the Müpa in Budapest, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and the Musikverein in Vienna, under the direction of Martin Böckstiegel, François-Xavier Roth, Pierre Bleuse, Lucie Leguay, and Corrado Rovaris. In Mozart’s works, she has portrayed roles such as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Sandrina (La finta giardiniera), and the Countess (Le nozze di Figaro). She has also performed as Elle (La Voix Humaine by Poulenc), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare by Handel), and Manon by Massenet.

An eclectic artist, active both on opera stages and in concert halls, Hélène Walter has performed Bach’s Mass in B minor, the Passions, the Christmas and Easter Oratorios with the Musiciens du Louvre, Solisti Veneti, Spirito, the Pygmalion ensemble, and in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Basel Kammerorchester. In 2022, she sang Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg alongside the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain and Bruno Mantovani, and she was a guest of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2018.

Hélène Walter has featured prominently in two major discographic productions, recorded at the prestigious Château de Versailles with La Chapelle Harmonique and more recently with La Chapelle Rhénane. Critic Ermes Mercuri praised her « vocal class and fascinating stage maturity » as « the highly talented Hélène Walter. »

Jonathan Frigeri is a sound/radio artist, performer, and electronic music producer—or, in a less conventional definition, a cave-exploring artist and psychic engineer working at the intersection of art and technology. He seeks to use technology with a lo-fi approach to evoke critical thinking through a poetic touch. Media are reduced to their essential form and questioned in their communicative, social, and philosophical functions. He pushes the boundaries and limits of a possible reality in order to see and hear what lies behind the curtain.

Making a name for herself across multiple engagements in Opera and Concert, showing a vivid temperament and a true love of making music on stage, Zoi Tsokanou is the first woman in history to lead a major Greek Orchestra. From 2017 to 2023, she served as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, leading 120 musicians in a new area of repertoire, international profile, accessibility, and educational and community engagement.

Highlights of the concert season 2024/2025 include her Return to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, her Debut with the Hessisches Staatsorchester Wiesbaden, the Tyrolean Symphony Orchestra, the Brandenburgische Staatsphilharmonie, Concerts with Athens State Symphony Orchestra, The Lausanne Sinfonietta, the Orquesta Sinfonica da Xalapa in Mexico and a series of appearances and recordings with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.

In the past seasons, she made her Debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London Gorecki’s Symphony nr. 3 choreographed by Crystal Pite, at the Norwegian National Opera, at Grande Theatre de Geneve, as well as with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande OSR, the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra NOSPR, the Niederrheinische Sinfonikern a.o. Her new album with the TSSO “Topos” has been recently released by Naxos receiving critical acclaim.

She works with distinguished artists like Gil Shaham, Thomas Hampson, Cyprien Katsaris, Juliana Avdeeva, Anastasia Kobekina, Simon Trpceski, Daniel Lozakovich, Alena Baeva, Daniel Müller Schott, Anneleen Lenaerts, Valeriy Sokolov, Lucienne Renaudin Vary, Roman Simovic, Maximilian Hornung, Ramon Vargas, a.o. Other recent engagements include concerts with the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Artist in Residence Marlis Petersen, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Nationale de Lille, Düsseldorfer Symphonikern, Sofia Philharmonic, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Bergische Symphonikern, Szczecin Philharmonic, the Radio and Television Orchestra Madrid RTVE, Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Contrechamps Geneve, the Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt, as all major Greek orchestras and the Greek National Opera where she appears regularly. She participated in famous festivals such as Lucerne Festival, Holland Festival, Athens Festival, Schumann Festival Düsseldorf, Domstufen Festival, Klangspuren Festival, Festival Amplitudes.

From 2014-2017, she served as a permanent conductor at the Theater Erfurt conducting a vast Opera and Concert Repertoire. For two years she held the position of Associate Conductor at the oldest Czech Orchestra, the Westbohemian Symphony, and from 2011-2014 she was the Music Director of Arosa Music Theater at the Arosa Festival, Switzerland.

In 2024 she conducted the new Carmen production of the Schauspielhaus Zürich in Zurich and Amsterdam winning critical acclaim. In the Spring of 2018, she conducted Spontini’s rarely performed Opera Agnes von Hohenstaufen at Theater Erfurt creating an international sensation. At the Greek National Opera, she led renowned Opera productions such as Barrie Kosky’s Magic Flute, Katie Mitchell’s Lucia die Lammermoor and Elijah Moshinsky’s Simon Boccanegra. Her Opera Repertoire includes among others, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Macbeth, Otello, Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana, Glucks Orfeo ed Euridice, Die Verkaufte Braut, Gounods Faust, Zandonai’s Giulietta e Romeo, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, die Lustige Witwe, Die Fledermaus, West Side Story, working together with Opera Theaters in Erfurt, Bremen, Regensburg, Osnabrück, Hagen, Athens, Thessaloniki.

One of her remarkable moments is her assistantship with Bernard Haitink, her important mentor, together with Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She was invited several times by Lucerne Festival to participate in the conducting Master Class with Bernard Haitink as well as from Tonhalle Orchestra and David Zinman. She won several prizes in International Conducting Competitions. Zoi Tsokanou was born in Thessaloniki. She held from her hometown a piano and musicology degree and studied in Zurich piano with Konstantin Scherbakov and Conducting by Johannes Schlaefli. She lives with her family in Zurich.

Anne-Cécile Moser discovered dance at the age of thirteen, followed shortly by theatre.
She quickly knew she wanted to make it her profession. After graduating in 1987, she worked with numerous directors, including Matthias Langhoff and Omar Porras.

In 2002, she founded acmosercie, a company marked by a dreamlike, sensitive, poetic, and daring universe. There, she created A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Alma ou petits bouts de rêves… by Marielle Pinsard, M.W (Magic Woman) with various Swiss female writers, Do Jedi Knights Have a Pimple on Their Nose? by Camille Rebetez, Adriatic Chronicles and Untitled (Provisional Title) with texts by Domenico Carli, Be Calme, Lison with writings by Louise Bourgeois and Jean Frémont, and La voix humaine by Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau with Virginie Falquet and Hélène Walter.

From 2007 to 2009, she was supported by a trust-based contract from the Canton of Vaud. In 2011, she launched the large-scale project 5600k – Les artisans de l’ombre with Mario Del Curto. Since 2017, Anne-Cécile Moser has also been practicing as an art therapist. (http://acmosercie.com/theatre/)

Contrechamps is an ensemble of soloists specialized in creating, developing and disseminating instrumental music of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The Ensemble is dedicated to highlighting the diversity of aesthetics and formats making up the contemporary and experimental scene. For over 40 years the Ensemble Contrechamps has been working hand in hand with a large number of composers, conductors and artists. The Ensemble also showcases the multiple skills and unique talents of its member musicians and strives to develop fresh formats such as installation-performances, radiophonic concerts, research laboratories or collaborative processes. Its hybrid formula, both orchestra and collective, enables it to adapt to a variety of artistic constraints and to the proposals of the artists it works with. Contrechamps is renowned for its accomplishments and is a regular guest on international and Swiss stages and at prominent festivals.