Doulce Mémoire
represents above all the spirit of the Renaissance – a time of discoveries, inventions, voyages, creativity... For more than thirty years now, this close-knit and loyal team of musicians and singers has been involved in artistic ventures of a constantly innovative nature, with the regular participation of actors and dancers. The ensemble’s productions range from the Splendeurs de la Renaissance programme, featuring the very serious Missa pro victoria by Tomás Luis de Victoria, to the mischievous and musicologically irresponsible Le Cri du tournebout or the re-creation of festivities at the royal court of François I in Magnificences à la cour de France.

Ever since it came into being, Doulce Mémoire has appeared at national theatres, opera houses and festivals all over France, as well as in many major cities abroad. Always game for new challenges, the ensemble has also performed at more unusual venues: on the forecourt of a cinema in the heart of Paris, in front of the prestigious Taipei Palace Museum, in the grounds of the Sultans’ Palace in Istanbul, or precariously balanced on a barge in the Tahiti Lagoon.

Through its concerts and staged performances, Doulce Mémoire enables audiences to discover music that could have been heard by great men of the Renaissance such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rabelais, François I and others, some of whom were very infl uential in the Loire Valley and left their mark on some of its famous Renaissance châteaux. Particularly active in that part of France, the ensemble has developed a special relationship with the Centre-Val de Loire Region and the Château de Chambord.

In the course of its travels, Doulce Mémoire has encountered artists with whom it has forged wonderful personal and artistic relationships; these include the Hunan Shadow Theatre in China, the Portuguese fado singer António Zambujo, the Iranian singer Taghi Akhbari, and Sanjay Khan and Amrat Hussain, specialists in traditional Indian music. Such encounters provide an opportunity to show how easily Renaissance music can travel and create exchanges and interactions with the music of other cultures. Programmes and recordings such as Laudes (Christian laude and Sufi chant) and Les Nuits de Jaipur (in which the Ars Subtilior of the Visconti court in Milan meets North Indian ragas) are perfect illustrations.

Doulce Mémoire records for the labels Alpha Classics, Ricercar and Le Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo. Its recordings have received many distinctions: Diapason d’Or de l’Année, Choc du Monde de la Musique, ƒƒƒƒ Télérama, and so on. The ensemble has also taken part in a number of audiovisual documentaries.

Denis Raisin Dadre
After his musical studies – recorder, oboe and musicology – Denis Raisin Dadre formed the ensemble Doulce Mémoire in 1989. His keen interest in history, literature, and the arts in general, as well as music, led him to devise programmes set in a historical context.

His career included memorable achievements both in concert and on record; his love for the Renaissance never weakened. As Denis Raisin Dadre studied the material found in European libraries, and transposed manuscript scores or tried out various instrumental possibilities, he questioned preconceived ideas and sometimes even the vocabulary of music – and not only that of the Renaissance, for he often worked with stage directors and choreographers on the creation of original types of performance.

He was regularly invited to take part in academies organised for the training of young musicians. Denis Raisin Dadre taught, for example, at those of Gijon (Spain), Chiquitos (Bolivia), Prague (Czech Republic) and Havana (Cuba). He also taught in the Department of Early Music at the Conservatoire in Tours.

Denis Raisin Dadre was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 1999.

Denis Raisin Dadre died in September 2025, at the age of 69.