Ode to Love

Founded in Grand-Saconnex in the wake of Ensemble La Fontana Cantabile, the Académie La Fontana Cantabile is an association dedicated to promoting young talent by offering them opportunities to perform in choirs, orchestras, and often as soloists in major works of the classical repertoire. It is also the entity responsible for organizing the Ensemble’s projects in Geneva.

The concept began in 2016 at the Haute École de Musique de Genève, driven by the vision of its founders, conductor Jean Gautier-Pignonblanc and lyric singer Raphaël Hardmeyer, who were convinced that practical experience through concerts was an essential part of their training. Today, supported by organist Gaby Hardmeyer (a pupil of Pierre Segond at the former Geneva Conservatoire), the founders have continued to flourish: Jean is now a professor at the Geneva Conservatory, and Raphaël pursues a singing career across Europe while remaining active in Geneva.

Keen to transmit their skills and experience in today’s competitive classical music world, they stage two projects each year, often including coaching with distinguished specialists. Recently, they worked with the renowned German tenor Gerd Türk. The Académie primarily selects students from the HEM, giving them the opportunity to perform alongside the Ensemble La Fontana Cantabile, which has gained recognition through its concerts at the Temple Saint-Gervais and by inaugurating the newly renovated CMG building at Place Neuve, where they premiered Jean-Claude Schlaepfer’s Te Deum.

In June 2018, Jean Gautier-Pignonblanc obtained his Master’s degree in Choral Conducting under Brazilian conductor Celso Antunes at the HEM in  Geneva, along with the Janine-Françoise Muller-Dumas Special Prize awarded by the City of Geneva. After a year as assistant, he became conductor of the large oratorio choir composed of HEM students and in 2019 took a teaching position in the Music Culture Department of the Geneva Conservatory. Passionate about the institution, he is now assistant director while continuing to teach.

He co-founded the professional Ensemble La Fontana Cantabile, with which he has conducted Bach’s major works including the St. John Passion (2016), the Easter Oratorio (2017), the Magnificat (2019), and the Mass in B minor (2020). In 2023, the ensemble was invited to perform the exceptional St. Matthew Passion at numerous festivals. Following the complete Christmas Cantatas (2023 and 2024), the ensemble will perform Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Gubaidulina’s Canticle of the Sun with cellist Ophélie Gaillard in 2025. Since 2017, Jean has also conducted the amateur choir of Vandœuvres-Choulex-Cologny, comprising about sixty singers.

Interested in opera, Jean was invited in 2015 and again in 2017 to the Vienna State Opera by its chorus master Thomas Lang. In 2016, he worked at the Opéra-Théâtre de Saint-Étienne (France) as répétiteur and conducted Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Le nozze di Figaro in 2017 for the Académie Lyrique de Vendôme. In Bourg-en-Bresse, he was invited to conduct Dvořák’s Stabat Mater and Brahms’s German Requiem at the magnificent Brou Abbey in 2022 and 2023.

After studying piano, drama, and singing at the Conservatory in Normandy, Coralie Quellier continued her training with Gilles Cachemaille at the HEM in Geneva, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in singing in 2014. She then joined the HEMU in Lausanne in Brigitte Balleys’ class, where she obtained a Master’s degree in performance in 2016.

She performs regularly in the professional choirs of the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne. Coralie Quellier particularly enjoys performing on stage and has developed a solo repertoire ranging from comic opera, with roles such as Fiametta (Audran), Metella (Offenbach), and Havas in Une opérette à Ravensbrück by Germaine Tillon, to café-concerts, where she sings the hits of Thérèse with the company l’Arsenal d’Apparitions, and at the Théâtre du Galpon in the cabaret opera Mack is Coming Back, directed by G. Alvarez. She has also performed in Palestine at the Bethlehem Convention Palace in the title role of Carmen (Bizet), as well as in Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera as Jenny, directed by S. Grögl at the Théâtre du Galpon.

An insatiably curious spirit, a taste for risk, an unbounded appetite for the cello repertoire across all styles, civic engagement, and an unconditional love of nature — these are the hallmarks of the brilliant Franco-Swiss cellist Ophélie Gaillard.

Named “Instrumental Soloist Revelation” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2003, she has since performed in recital across Asia and Europe and appeared with leading orchestras including the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Orchestre national de Metz, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and New Japan Philharmonic.

She records for Aparté, with several acclaimed complete cycles (Bach, Britten, Schumann, Fauré, Chopin, Brahms, CPE Bach, Strauss), as well as thematic albums that have reached wide audiences, such as Dreams, Alvorada, and Exils.

A passionate collaborator, she has shared the stage with Lambert Wilson, hip-hop dancer Ibrahim Sissoko, choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, Étoile dancers Hugo Marchand and Ludmila Pagliero, and bossa nova star Toquinho (Canto de sereia, live album, Aparté, 2017).

In 2005, she founded the Pulcinella Orchestra, which she leads from the cello, exploring 17th- and 18th-century repertoire on period instruments. Following her acclaimed double album of Boccherini with Sandrine Piau (2019), she and Pulcinella enjoyed major success with Vivaldi: I colori dell’ombra during the pandemic with mezzo-sopranos Lucile Richardot and Delphine Galou.

In 2021, she released Cellopera, a journey through a century of opera arias transcribed for cello and orchestra, recorded with the Vienna Morphing Orchestra under Frédéric Chaslin. In 2022, A Night in London explored composers who ventured to London in the 1730s, such as Porpora, Geminiani, and Bononcini. In 2023, she turned to Naples with Sandrine Piau, Marina Viotti, and Luan Goes for a colorful double album featuring works by Porpora, Leo, Durante, Matteis, and traditional tarantellas.

Percussionist Gabriel Michaud is a versatile musician with eclectic influences. He has performed at numerous festivals (La Folle Journée, Festival Archipel, IPEA Shanghai, Salon-de-Provence, among others), both in recital and chamber music, as well as with orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire.

In 2021, he won several prizes in solo competitions (Germany, Switzerland, Spain), followed in 2022 by chamber music awards (Luxembourg, with Trio Fragments). That same year, he took first prize, the audience award, and the press award at the prestigious TROMP International Percussion Competition Eindhoven.

Gabriel is also a composer, writing for chamber ensembles and electronic music, including work with the rap collective Codex Dissident.

Born in France in 2003, Gabriel began percussion at age 7 at a local music school, then joined the Nantes Conservatory at 11. Deeply involved in jazz, he played in several groups, notably the Tryptyk trio and the ODC 5tet. In 2020, he entered the Haute École de Musique de Genève, studying contemporary and orchestral repertoire as well as drum set, tablas, and composition. Since September 2023, he has been pursuing a Master’s degree in percussion at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

Nikolay Ivanov was born in 1995 in Pleven, Bulgaria. He began his musical studies at the age of 10 at the Panayot Pipkov National School of Arts in Pleven in Simeon Serafimov’s percussion class.

From an early age, he gave numerous concerts as a soloist and with the Accent percussion ensemble.

In November 2018, he won second prize and the Friends of TROMP audience prize at the TROMP International Percussion Competition in Eindhoven, Netherlands. In June 2019, he took part in a creative project at the Centre Pompidou for Contemporary Art in Paris with a concert at Ircam. In August 2020, he was invited to perform at the PAS Festival in Beijing, China, and later in October at the IPEA International Percussion CloudArt Festival in Shanghai. In 2020, he obtained his bachelor’s degree and entered the master’s program for soloists at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève. In 2021, he was invited to join the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris as an additional percussionist. In October 2021, he won first prize at the IPEA Percussion Competition in Shanghai. Holder of a Master’s degree in Pedagogy from the Haute École de Musique de Genève, he has been teaching at the École Municipale de Musique et de Danse de St-Julien for several years.