La Petite Bande Academy 2023 will take place in Italy from July 24 to August 6.
All the info can be read in our newly published brochure.
WELCOME!
Contact:
lapetitebandeacademy@gmail.com
Whatsapp +393280681241
https://www.facebook.com/LaPetiteBandeSummerAcademy
Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande
wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Let us resolve to fill the year 2023 with positive sounds and fruitful energy - in the wake of 2022 this will be the greatest task!
In the face of the deafening cries for bread and games, which flood our world of luxury even more when life becomes difficult, a constant pursuit of deeper quality and more mature thinking are the only answer, in which lightheartedness and humor are certainly not to be missed ...
Yes, the power of spring is already upon us!
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La Petite Bande was 50 years young this year and concluded its anniversary year 2022 with the festive premiere of its own production of Mozart's opera "COSÌ FAN TUTTE," in the world-famous Amsterdam Concertgebouw on December 11, 2022.
LA PETITE BANDE celebrates its 50th Anniversary
with MOZARTS opera COSÌ FAN TUTTE
in the beautiful Concert Hall of the CONCERTGEBOUW in AMSTERDAM
on Sunday 11 December 2022 at 2.15pm
Come and celebrate with us!
Click here for tickets
La Petite Bande presents you with Mozart's "Così Fan Tutte". The ensemble's musical quality is combined with flamboyant costumes and an intense acting style that harks back to the theatrical body language of the 18th century.
Musical and visual aspects are thus brought together in a harmonious unity and allow the original vivacity of Mozart's and Da Ponte's magnificent comedy to run wild.
"Così Fan Tutte" is the third of the great operas Mozart/Da Ponte opera's: the most original and the most mature of them. La Scuola degli Amanti, "The School for Lovers" is the opera's real title, and indeed: the four young and tempestuous lovers have a lot to learn... but all six personnages have their own difficulties in this burlesque adventure, until at the end everything unexpectedly comes right.
Fiordiligi ANAIS MERLIN, soprano
Dorabella JOHANNA REITHMEIER, mezzo-soprano
Ferrando NILE SENATORE, tenor
Guilelmo ANTHONY RIVERA, baritone
Despina MAYAN GOLDENFELD, soprano
Don Alfonso GUILLEM BATLLORI, baritone
SIGISWALD KUIJKEN, conductor
MARIE KUIJKEN, stage director
MARIJKE SILEGHEM, costumes
INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE LA PETITE BANDE
Sara Kuijken, concertmaster
As was often the case in Mozart's time, Sigiswald Kuijken has arranged the opera's score for chamber ensemble: a string quintet with double bass and two horns, supported by a harpsichord to accompany the recitatives. A welcome consequence is that the relationships between singers and individual instrumentalists have naturally become closer and more intimate, both musically and humanly: a real troupe !
We look forward to greeting you to celebrate and enjoy Mozart's extraordinary music and Da Ponte's fine humour together.
A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY !!!
Click here for tickets
-Sigiswald Kuijken tells about his meeting with the famous painter Thierry Bosquet-
I met Thierry Bosquet in the 1980s through Philippe Lenaël, one of the first theatre and opera directors to specialise in Baroque historical staging. My meeting with Thierry immediately moved me.
Thierry Bosquet (born in 1937 in Uccle) turned out to be a true soul mate for me (and also for my wife Marleen)! His long and successful career as a painter and theatre designer brought him in many different countries, and even now he is still painting almost every day!
Thierry's imagination is entirely populated by characters from the 17th and 18th centuries, dressed in their own clothes, with their own gestures and expressions. They show us their lives and customs, their tastes, their wealth and poverty, and before we realize it, we feel the eternal echoes in our hearts when looking to them... Thierry is in love with this beauty, this theatricality, these curls and frills that were part of the life of the time!
2022 - FIFTY YEARS ANNIVERSARY of LA PETITE BANDE```
50 years of " La Petite Bande " in 2022 !!!
Here Marleen Thiers,
the wife of Sigiswald Kuijken, about the 50 years of "La Petite Bande"
In the blessed year of 1972, Sigiswald Kuijken was asked by the famous harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt to assemble a group of young and talented musicians to make a stylistically sound recording of "Le "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" by Lully, for the German record company Harmonia Mundi.
When the record company asked (after the recording) for a "name" for this still experimental and nameless ensemble, it was Gustav Leonhardt who immediately conjured up the name "La Petite Bande" - obviously with a wink!
At the court in Versailles under Louis XIV, numerous musicians were available, and under the musical rule of the Maître de Musique J.B. Lully, the most skilled among them were part of what was then called "La Petite Bande" - in contrast to "La Grande Bande", where all forces were deployed in large numbers, for the big occasions...
Therefore, "La Petite Bande" included the best of the best...
La Petite Bande recorded Mozart's Kleine Nachtmusik early 2021 for ACCENT , in combination with his 3 Divertimenti for strings (KV 136 137 and 138). This CD is without any doubt the first and only on the market, which presents these indeed well-known works in the so typical historical “diverimento” -string ensemble from Mozart's time: 2 violins, viola and double bass (instead of violoncello) ! This might have sounded the serenade orchestra under your bedroom window if you had lived in late 18th century Vienna…
Version for string quartet by Peter Lichtenthal (1780-1853)
Transcriptions for string quartet by the composer or someone else was common practice in Mozarts time. In that light this string-version of Mozart's Requiem is nothing special. What makes it special, is the circumstance of the original Requiem itself. It is known that Mozart left the majority of the work incompleted, and that on request of Mozart's widow, his pupil Süssmayer did the finishing job. Where one's work ends and the other's starts, no-one knows. This 'skeleton-version' of the Requiem, however, fully preserves the eloquence of Mozart's music and therefore perhaps proves that the Requiem contains more of the masters own composing than we can objectively establish. But incomplete as the Requiem is, Mozart's universal genius radiates through the notes in any version. And if anyone can bring the radiation to the surface in this version, no one better than the Kuijken Kwartet.
Dear friends and fans of La Petite Bande,
We would like to make a positive note in these corona times. At the end of November 2020 a new CD of La Petite Bande was released by the German CD company ACCENT, on which 3 beautiful cantatas by J.S.Bach can be heard: BWV 72, 156 and 92.
Although in a strict sense it is not typical "Christmas music", this Bach recording will certainly contribute heartwarmingly and thoughtfully to a deeper experience of this corona-coloured end-of-year period of 2020 and of the months to come ...
This new CD from LPB is available on the market - but can be delivered quickly via LPB itself, at the price of 26 € (shipping costs are included).
You can order by paying into the account of Votre Petite Bande:
IBAN: BE 30 4310 6868 0111 (not .... .... 6888 etc , as initially indicated by mistake on this page, sorry!)
BIC: KREDBEBB
Please clearly state your postal address when ordering ! (If you would like an invoice, please also mention 'invoice').
As you might know, for reasons that are not properly understood the Flemish Government terminated its guaranteed annual financial support for La Petite from January 1st 2013: we are the only Belgian orchestra to be treated in this manner, despite our international reputation and extensive discography and contribution to Belgian, European and indeed worldwide musical life. The loss of Government financial support has put La Petite Bande in serious financial difficulties, and we are all working very hard to raise money to ensure that our unique orchestra can continue its work. We are sure that we will succeed, but to do so we need your support, to ensure that we will be able to continue our work and make music!
More information to support the orchestra, as explained by Sigiswald, can be found here:
Joining the new 'LPB Friend group'
for a better user experience.