Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI: A World of Emotions

Jordi Savall is one of the most versatile musical personalities of his generation. For more  than 50 years, he has rescued musical gems from the obscurity of neglect and oblivion and  given them back for all to enjoy. A tireless researcher into early music, he interprets and  performs the repertory both as a gambist and a conductor. His activities as a concert  performer, teacher, researcher and creator of new musical and cultural projects have made  him a leading figure in the reappraisal of historical music. Together with Montserrat  Figueras, he founded the ensembles Hespèrion XXI (1974), La Capella Reial de Catalunya  (1987) and Le Concert des Nations (1989), with whom he explores and creates a world of  emotion and beauty shared with millions of early music enthusiasts around the world.

With his key participation in Alain Corneau’s film Tous les Matins du Monde (awarded the  César Cinema Prize for the best soundtrack), his intense concert activity (about 140  concerts per year), his record releases (six recordings per year) and the creation in 1998,  together with Montserrat Figueras, of his own record label, Alia Vox, Jordi Savall has shown  that early music does not have to be elitist, but rather that it appeals to an increasingly  wide and diverse audience of all age groups.

Savall has recorded and released more than 230 albums covering the Medieval,  Renaissance, Baroque and Classical music repertories, with a special focus on the Hispanic  and Mediterranean musical heritage, receiving many awards and distinctions such as the  Midem Classical Award, the International Classical Music Award, and a Grammy Award. His  concert programs have made music an instrument of mediation to achieve understanding  and peace between different and sometimes warring peoples and cultures. Accordingly,  guest artists appearing with his ensembles include Arab, Israeli, Turkish, Greek, Armenian,  Afghan, Mexican and North American musicians. In 2008, Jordi Savall was appointed  European Union Ambassador for intercultural dialogue and, together with Montserrat  Figueras, was named “Artist for Peace” under the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors program.

Between 2020 and 2021, to mark Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, he conducted  the complete symphonies with Le Concert des Nations and recorded them in two  collections entitled Beethoven Révolution. The impact they have had worldwide has been  defined as “a miracle” (Fanfare), and volume II has been distinguished with the  Schallplattenkritik Prize for the best orchestral record.

Jordi Savall’s prolific musical career has brought him the highest national and international  distinctions, including honorary doctorates from the Universities of Evora (Portugal),  Barcelona (Catalonia), Louvain (Belgium) and Basel (Switzerland), the order of Chevalier de  la Légion d’Honneur (France), the Praetorius Music Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of Lower Saxony, the Gold Medal of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Helena  Vaz da Silva Award, and the prestigious Léonie Sonning Prize, which is considered the  Nobel prize of the music world. Recently, he has been elected Honorary Member by the  Royal Philharmonic Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and la Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Ancient music’s most important value stems from its ability as a universal artistic  language to transmit feelings, emotions and ancestral ideas that even today can enthral  the contemporary listener. With a repertoire that encompasses the period between the  10th and 18th centuries, Hespèrion XXI searches continuously for new points of union  between the East and West, with a clear desire for integration and for the recovery of  international musical heritage, especially that of the Mediterranean basin and with links  to the New World.

In 1974 Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras, together with Lorenzo Alpert and  Hopkinson Smith, founded the ancient music ensemble Hespèrion XX in Basel as a way  of recovering and disseminating the rich and fascinating musical repertoire prior to the  19th century on the basis of historical criteria and the use of original instruments. The  name Hespèrion means “an inhabitant of Hesperia”, which in ancient Greek referred to  the two most westerly peninsulas in Europe: the Iberian and the Italian. It was also the  name given to the planet Venus as it appeared in the west. At the turn of the 21st  century Hespèrion XX became known as Hespèrion XXI.

Today Hespèrion XXI is central to the understanding of the music of the period between  the Middle Ages and the Baroque. Their labours to recover works, scores, instruments  and unpublished documents have a double and incalculable value. On one hand, their  rigorous research provides new information and understanding about the historical  knowledge of the period, and on the other hand, the exquisite performances enable people  to freely enjoy the aesthetic and spiritual delicacy of the works of this period.

Right from the beginning Hespèrion XXI set out on a clearly innovative and artistic  course that would lead to the establishment of a school in the field of ancient music  because they conceived, and continue to conceive, ancient music as an experimental  musical tool and with it they seek the maximum beauty and expressiveness in their  performances. Any musician in the field of ancient music will have a commitment to the  original spirit of each work and has to learn to connect with it by studying the composer,  the instruments of the period, the work itself and the circumstances surrounding it. But as  a craftsman in the art of music, he is also obliged to make decisions about the piece being  played: a musician’s capacity to connect the past with the present and to connect culture  with its dissemination depend on his skill, creativity and capacity to transmit emotions.

Hespèrion XXI’s repertoire includes, amongst others, the music of the Sephardi Jews,  Castilian romances, pieces from the Spanish Golden Age, and Europa de les Nacions.  Some of their most celebrated concert programmes are Les Cantigues de Santa Maria  d’Alfons X El Savi, La Diàspora Sefardí, the music of Jerusalem, Istanbul, Armenia and  the Folías Criollas. Thanks to the outstanding work of numerous musicians and  collaborators who have worked with the ensemble over all these years Hespèrion  XXI still plays a key role in the recovery and reappraisal of the musical heritage, and one  that has great resonance throughout the world. The group has published more than 60  CDs and performs concerts for the whole world, appearing regularly at the great  international festivals of ancient music.

Following the model of the famous Medieval “royal chapels” for which the great masterpieces of both religious and secular music were composed on the Iberian Peninsula, in 1987 Montserrat Figueras and Jordi Savall founded La Capella Reial, one of the first vocal groups devoted to the performance of Golden Age music on historical principles and consisting exclusively of Hispanic and Latin voices. In 1990, when the ensemble received the regular patronage of the Generalitat of Catalonia, it changed its name to La Capella Reial de Catalunya.

The newly-formed ensemble specialized in the recovery and performance on historical principles of the polyphonic and vocal music of Spain and Europe from the Middle Ages and Golden Age up to the 19th century. La Capella Reial de Catalunya shares with Hespèrion XXI the same artistic outlook and goals, rooted in respect for the profoundly spiritual and artistic dimension of each work, combining quality and authenticity regarding the style of the period with a careful attention to the declamation and expressive projection of the poetic text.

The ensemble’s extensive repertory ranges from the Medieval music of the various cultures of the Mediterranean to the great masters of the Renaissance and the Baroque. Some of their most celebrated concert programs are the Missa de Batalla by Joan Cererols, Vespro della Beata Vergine by Claudio Monteverdi, the Cantigas of Alfonso X (the Wise), El Llibre Vermell of Montserrat, Sephardic songs, the music of The Elche Mystery Play, the ballads from Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote, the Cancioneros del Siglo de Oro (the Songbooks of the Golden Age) and Mozart’s Requiem. Recently, the group has also performed and recorded J. S. Bach’s Saint Mark’s Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha Triumphans, J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and Joseph Haydn’s The Creation, which has won international critical acclaim.

The group has distinguished itself in various Baroque and Classical opera repertories, as well as in contemporary works by Arvo Pärt. The Capella Reial de Catalunya played on de Jacques Rivette’s soundtrack of the film Jeanne La Pucelle (1993) on the life of Joan of Arc.

In 1992, La Capella Reial de Catalunya made their opera debut accompanying all the performances of Le Concert des Nations. They have received various awards and distinctions in recognition of their more than 40 CDs, notably the Midem Classical Award and the Grammy Award. Under the direction of Jordi Savall, La Capella Reial de Catalunya pursue an intense programme of concerts and recordings all over the world, and since the ensemble’s creation it has regularly performed at the major international early music festivals.

Canadian soprano Neema Bickersteth was born and raised in Alberta to parents from Sierra Leone. She is known for her skills as a singer, an actor and a maker and dramaturge of multi-disciplinary performance.

​She has performed operatic roles in both Canada and Europe – ranging from Mozart to Lehar to Weill. In recent years, she has specialized in contemporary projects in opera, music theatre and experimental theatre. These include: the title role in Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha – A Musical Reimagining, produced by Volcano at the Luminato Festival (co-presented by TO Live, and associate produced by the Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper Theatre and Moveable Beast) and at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago; the lead role in The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist (Lincoln Center, New York, Hopkins Center/Stanford Live), an opera in seven movements by librettist Vievee Francis and composer Jonathan Berger, responding to the murder of Eric Garner; Aportia Chryptych, a Black opera for Portia White (Canadian Opera Company); a popular series of concerts and shows with Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto and New York; multiple tours in the USA and Europe with globally-acclaimed Spanish conductor and musician Jordi Savall; Life After for the Musical Stage and Canadian Stage Companies in Toronto; and Century Song for Toronto’s multiple award-winning Volcano and her own collective, Moveable Beast. Century Song is a work she co-created and which has toured to twelve cities in Canada, Europe and East Africa to critical acclaim.

She has appeared on the stages of some of the most prestigious companies in Canada and around the world, including Lincoln Center, New York; the Berlin Philharmonie; the Canadian Stage Company; the Canadian Opera Company; Volcano; Tapestry New Opera; Stanford Live; Hopkins Center for the Arts; Nightwood Theatre; Crow’s Theatre; Musical Stage Company; Luminato Festival; Stratford Festival; PuSh Festival; Obsidian Theatre; Urbanvessel and the National Arts Centre of Canada, among many others.

In addition, Neema has been honoured to perform for the XIVth Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. She has received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees (Opera) from the University of British Columbia. She is a co-founder of and artistic producer for the experimental collective, Moveable Beast. NOW Magazine (Toronto) has named her as one of the top ten theatre artists in the city. She has won twice and been nominated five times for Outstanding Performance at Toronto’s Dora Mavor Moore awards.

Born in Guadeloupe, Yannis François began is carrer as a dancer with Lena Blou. He entered the École- Atelier Rudra Béjart in Lausanne and later became a member of the Béjart Ballet (Compagnie M). During the singing lessons which were a part of this dance school studies, Maurice Béjart was impressed by Yannis’ voice and encouraged him to fully explore a singing career parallel to the ballet. He studied with Gary Magby and was graduated with his master’s degree in Classical Singing at the Conservatoire de Lausanne (CH).

On the opera stage, Yannis has sung the title role in Don Giovanni by Mozart, Curio in Giulio Cesare beside Andreas Scholl, Peter Quince in A Midsummer night’s dream by Britten, Sasha in Moscow Cheryomushki by Shostakovitch, Melisso in Alcina by Händel, Isacius in Richardus Primus by Telemann (Giessen, Michael Hofstetter), Seneca in L’incoronazione di Poppea and Plutone in Monteverdi’s Orfeo both with Leonardo Garcìa Alarcòn, the title-role in Eights Songs for a Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies, Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas in Staatsoper Berlin (Sasha Walz, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin), Le chef des Matelots in Alcione by Marais conducted by Jordi Savall in Opéra de Versailles, Gaveston in La Dame Blanche by Boieldieu.

In concert, he sang the Bass Solo part in several oratorios such as Mass in B minor (Vaclav Luks, Collegium 1704), Johannes-Passion by J.S Bach (Ton Koopman), Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, and this season Mozart’s Requiem in Philharmonie de Paris. He has appeared as a soloist with other conductors such as Ottavio Dantone, Gabriel Garrido, Christina Pluhar, Paul Agnew, Sébastien Daucé, Lars Ulrich Mortensen, among others.

From 2019 Yannis is mentored by Barbara Hannigan in her Equilibrium Young Artists programme and sang Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress by Stravinski in Brussels, California, and Aldeburgh, conducted by Hannigan herself.

One of his projects in 2021 is Lucifer in Cain overo Il Primo Omicidio by Scarlatti at Salzburg Festival, conducted by Philippe Jaroussky.

Next season he will sing Mercury in Cupid and Death by Matthew Locke with Ensemble Correspondances (Sebastien Daucé) in Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and Opéra de Caen, then in Le Malade imaginaire (Charpentier) and Le Mariage forcé (Lully) with Le Concert Spirituel (Hervé Niquet).

Given his passion and knowledge in forgotten or rare music repertoires, Yannis is regularly hired to research and create CD programmes for artists such as Jakub Józef Orliński (Anima Sacra, Facce d’Amore, Anima Aeterna), Philippe Jaroussky (La Vanità del mondo), Julie Fuchs (Mademoiselle), Michael Spyres, Jeanine de Bique, Bruno de Sà (Roma Travestita), Lea Desandre (Amazone).

He is the founder of Editions Charybde & Scylla.