InAlto, Lambert Colson, Bernard Foccroulle
Biographie InAlto, Lambert Colson, Bernard Foccroulle
Alice Foccroulle
soprano, was a member of the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie children’s choir from the age of seven. Besides the lessons she takes with the Danish singing teacher Susanna Eken, she studied at the Musikhochschule Köln as a student of Joseph Protschka and Christoph Prégardien. Alice is regularly invited to perform with various ensembles and conductors such as Collegium Vocale Gent (Philippe Herreweghe), la Fenice (Jean Tubéry), Musica Favola (Stephane van Dijck) and Wim Becu. She took part in the “House of the sleeping beauties” composed by Kris Defoort and conducted by Patrick Davin, created in the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie and performed all over Europe. More recently, she recorded the roll of Dorinda in Zamponi's opera "Ulysse", conducted by Leonardo Garcia Alarcòn for the label Ricercar.
Bernard Foccroulle
was born in Liège (Belgium) in 1953. He began his international career as an organist in the mid-70s, playing a wide range of repertoire from Renaissance to contemporary music. He has performed dozens of world premieres of works by Philippe Boesmans, Brian Ferneyhough, Betsy Jolas, Xavier Darasse, Jonathan Harvey and Pascal Dusapin, among others. In the 1980s, he was a member of the Ricercar Consort, an ensemble devoted mainly to German baroque music. Since then, he has made his name as an organist as well as a composer and artistic director of major musical institutions.
Bernard Foccroulle’s discography as a soloist includes more than forty CDs. He has won various awards, including a Diapason d’Or for his recording of Dietrich Buxtehude’s complete organ works for the Ricercar label, and for the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which he recorded on beautifully preserved historic instruments. In 2014 he released a recording of the complete works of Matthias Weckmann on Ricercar and an album of his own organ works on Aeon.
As a soloist, Bernard Foccroulle regularly appears worldwide at the major concert halls of Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Sydney, Madrid, Torino, Oslo, Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg, Salzburg, Cologne, and Hamburg. In 2016, he inaugurated the new organ of the Paris Philharmonie together with other prominent organists.
In addition to solo organ recitals, he regularly plays with cornetto players such as Jean Tubéry and Lambert Colson, as well as with singers such as Palestinian singer and ‘Ud player Moneim Adwan. Another important aspect of Bernard Foccroulle’s work is the combination of music with other art forms, for example his collaboration with choreographers Jan Fabre (Preparatio mortis) and Salva Sanchis. One of his most outstanding current projects is Darkness and Light, in collaboration with Australian video artist Lynette Wallworth.
While continuing his career as organist, he became director of the Brussels opera house La Monnaie in 1992, holding this position until 2007. In 1993, he founded the "Culture and Democracy" association, which seeks to broaden participation in cultural life. From 2007 to 2018 he was Artistic Director of the Festival of Aix-en-Provence. In 2017, he received the Leadership Award at the International Opera Awards in London.
As composer, Bernard Foccroulle has written works for soprano and orchestra (Am Rande der Nacht after Rilke), for baritone and chamber music ensemble (Due after De Luca…), for soprano, baritone and chamber music ensemble (E vidi quattro stelle after Dante’s Purgatorio), soprano and piano (Quatre mélodies d’après Verlaine). Zauberland, a song cycle for soprano and piano based on poems by Martin Crimp, will premiere in April 2019 at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris under the direction of Katie Mitchell. He has also composed a cycle of pieces for historic organs (CD AEON, Diapason d’Or 2016).
Bernard Foccroulle is the author of La naissance de l'individu dans l 'art (Grasset, 2003), written in collaboration with Robert Legros and Tzvetan Todorov. He has also published two other books, which are based on interviews: Entre passion et résistance (Labor, 2005) and Faire vivre l'opéra, un art qui donne sens au monde (Actes Sud, 2018).
He is Doctor Honoris Causa of Montréal University and Aix-Marseille Université, and has been Professor of Organ at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels since 2010.
Lambert Colson
received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels under Françoise Defours, Pedro Memelsdorff, Bart Coen, Marleen Leicher, Bruce Dickey and Gebhard David. He also studied in Bremen (University of the Arts), Basel (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis), and Barcelona (ESMUC). He has worked with ensembles and conductors of the calibre of Les Talens lyriques (Christophe Rousset), Le Parlement de Musique (Martin Gester), Scherzi Musicali (Nicolas Achten), Les Paladins (Jérôme Correas), L’Echelle and Oltremontano. As a musician and researcher, he has contributed to journals including La pensée de midi (Editions Actes Sud), and is involved with the Royaumont Foundation, where he teaches on Lutheran music in the Holy Roman Empire and assists the composer Zad Moultaka.
Several contemporary composers, including Zad Moultaka, Fabrice Fitch und Bernard Foccroulle, have been inspired by Lambert’s boundless enthusiasm for learning more about his instrument to dedicate pieces to him. His interest in innovative joint projects led Lambert to discover hypnosis while working with the choreographer Catherine Contour.
In cooperation with artists such as Liesa van der Aa and Shara Worden, BOX allows him to explore the range of possibilities open to his instruments in popular music.
This fervent commitment to being a musician in tune with his time clearly motivates the search for musical and emotional cross-fertilisations Lambert and InAlto have embarked on.
