Concert Ombres et Lumières au Siècle de Louis XIV, autour des Leçons de Ténèbres

This concert of French music will feature works and authors contemporary to the period in which the great organ of the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu was built.

The theme of this concert refers to a liturgical musical genre created and developed in France in the 27th and XNUMXth centuries, the Lessons of Darkness. These vocal pieces, accompanied by the organ, were composed primarily from the Book of Lamentations of Jeremiah. Each Latin verse is preceded by the Hebrew letter that begins it in the Hebrew text. The Lessons of Darkness were intended to accompany the night services (matins and lauds) at the end of Holy Week (Holy Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), just before the celebration of Easter, which sees the rebirth of Light. Approached by the most eminent composers of the time, they constitute a summit of Baroque vocal art. During the concert on July XNUMX, they will alternate with purely instrumental works, taken from the principal organ books of the Grand Siècle.

The artists who will perform this repertoire, organist Mélodie Michel and singer Marie Ranvier, are two young musicians. They met at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), from which they graduated with distinction. Both are already embarking on promising career paths.
Their paths crossed over baroque and contemporary repertoires. The duo was born from a friendship and a deep musical understanding founded on a shared approach to performance combining commitment, rigor, and passion.

Marie grew up surrounded by music. At the age of 4, she began learning the piano and 3 years later, she began playing the cello at the same time. She then began singing at the age of 16, and quickly chose to devote herself to it.
She passed the competitive exam for the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris at the age of 19 and joined the Higher Department of Young Singers, which allowed her to sing in the greatest Parisian venues such as the Philharmonie, the Opéra-Comique or La Seine Musicale. She developed her technique and stage performance, and was soon admitted to the lyric singing class at the Conservatoire National de Musique et de Danse de Paris at the age of 21. There, she underwent a significant vocal change over the course of her studies; having previously sung roles such as The Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte by W.A. Mozart, Ophelia in Hamlet by A. Thomas and La Fille du Régiment by G. Donizetti, she now plays characters such as Liu in Turandot, Suor Angelica by G. Puccini and Rusalka by A. Dvorak. She received her master's degree with honors in June 2024 and continued her studies by joining the NEXT ensemble; indeed, a large part of her practice focuses on contemporary repertoire. She has thus participated in several world premieres, notably with the Ensemble Inter-contemporain.
She began her professional career as a singing teacher and lyric artist within the ACCENTUS choir, with whom she has already performed at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Rouen Opera.

Mélodie Michel joined the organ class of Olivier Latry and Thomas Ospital at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) in 2020, at the age of 16. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Organ with honors unanimously and with the jury's congratulations in 2023. Mélodie is a young Franco-American musician who was trained on the organ by Jean-Baptiste Robin at the CRR de Versailles, with whom she had the chance to work on several of her compositions. Passionate about music since the age of 4, Mélodie also studied piano, violin, viola, and musical writing at the CRR de Versailles. She unanimously entered the Superior Writing class at the CNSMDP in 2021 and obtained her Harmony prize in Fabien Waksman's class and her Fugue and Forms prize in David Leszczynski's class. She has just obtained her Master's degree in basso continuo in Thierry Maeder's class.
As an organist, Mélodie has already performed frequently in concert in France, playing the keyboards of prestigious instruments (at the Cavaillé-Coll grand organ of Saint-Sulpice, at the Saint-Eustache church in Paris, at the Saint-Séverin church in Paris, at the Chapelle Royale de Versailles, at the Royaumont Abbey, at the Nîmes Cathedral, at the Saint-Louis Cathedral in Versailles, etc.), but also abroad. Thus, Mélodie had the immense privilege of inaugurating the organ of Zaryadye Hall in Moscow, Russia, in February 2020, with 23 other eminent international organists during a 24-hour marathon. Since 2022, she has performed annually in Germany, where she has notably given a solo recital at the Sankt Johannes Church in Tübingen, a concert on the organ built in memory of Franz Liszt in Weimar, as well as a solo recital at the Jesuitenkirche in Mannheim and in September 2023, at the Heilig Kreuz Church in Bayreuth to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its construction.
In 2023, Mélodie performed in concert Francis Poulenc's Concerto for organ, string orchestra and timpani, accompanied by the Rainbow Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Dawkins, at the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Poulenc's death. She already has several creations to her credit (Swing by Christophe de Coudenhove at the Saint-Laurent Church in Paris, Versa est in luctum for choir organ and double choir by Pierre-Alain Braye-Weppe during the Saint-Sulpice Composition Competition, a work which won First Prize as well as the Internet Users' Prize), and already recordings: Alléluias sereins by Olivier Messiaen on the Schwenkedel organ of Toul Cathedral for a CD released in September 2022 on the Forlane label. But also, in 2024, Mélodie had the great opportunity to record the organ soundtrack for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, at the Auditorium of Radio France.
Mélodie also recorded the harmonium and celesta parts in the disc of the complete Symphonies of George Enescu with the Orchestre National de France conducted by Cristian Macelaru, released in 2024 on the Deutsche Grammophon label and doubly awarded with the Diapason d'Or 2024 and the CHOC Classica 2024.
In October 2024, Mélodie won the Artistic Development Award at the Canadian International Organ Competition.