Ensemble Irini

The Ensemble Irini, founded in 2014 by Lila Hajosi, is a polymorphic vocal ensemble favoring a cappella works, resolved to create “links which set free” between time and musical areas. It’s journey goes from the European Middle Ages to Byzantine music, to contemporary music (composer Zad Moultaka created Quel mystère que tu aies un corps for Irini in 2018 and Casus Ade in 2022), from the banks of the Fertile Crescent to the court of Bavaria via Constantinople.

Laureate of the Cité de la Voix de Vézelay, the ensemble has been invited to prestigious festivals such as the Radio France Occitanie Montpellier, Sacred Music Festival in Perpignan, Sacred Arts Festival in Evron, Voix et Route Romane, Sinfonia en Périgord, as well as the festivals at the Sylvanès Abbey and the Mont St-Michel. In 2018, its first female trio programme Maria Nostra gave birth to Irini’s debut album recorded at the Cité de la Voix awarded by the Choc de Classica award.

Committed in promoting early music and appropriating repertoires that are but little represented, the Ensemble Irini has turned towards Christian mysticism with O Sidera through the figures of the Sibyls, the Cherubim, the Mystery of the Incarnation, around the divine “Great Beyond”, where reason is lost and where spirit and music take the paths of the dream. This mixed vocal quintet programme puts the Prophecies of the Sibyls by Orlando di Lasso into perspective with extracts from the Byzantine liturgy.

 

Ensemble Irini

Direction: Lila Hajosi
Mezzo-sopranos: Eulalia Fantova, Clémence Faber
Contraltos: Julie Azoulay, Lauriane Gaudois Le Prev, Marie Pons
Tenor: Benoît-Joseph Meier
Basses: Guglielmo Buonsanti, Alessandro Ravasio