Concert de l’Hostel Dieu : Les Leçons de ténèbres et les Râga de la nuit

The Paris-based Concert de l’Hostel Dieu (CHD) has devoted over 20 years to discovering a rich
baroque instrumental and vocal repertoire. Acclaimed by their fellow musicians and by the French public, the CHD use period instruments and immerse themselves in the musical culture of the time, and they follow in tradition of drawing on outside musical influences, and have initiated international collaborations with local artistic teams, in partnership with Francophone and Francophile cultural institutions.

For this project, CHD has formed a partnership with Indian musicians performing ragas that were written at the same time as the baroque songs in their own repertoire, creating music that converges thousands of miles and hundreds of years.

The Alliance française du Bengale, the French Institute in India, in collaboration with G. D. Birla Sabhaghar, are delighted to present the Franco-Indian concert Lessons in Darkness and Raga of the Night: An improbable Meeting Across Musical Borders.

In Lessons in Darkness by the 17^th century French composer François Couperin evoked the dark and lonely death of Christ. Contemporaneously, Indian musicians evoked the night raga of darkness. This concert alternates the French compositions with ragas from the traditional Indian repertoire. The melisma of the bansuri flute alternate with two leading baroque voices in a captivating dialogue.

ARTISTIC TEAM

Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu :
Violaine Le Chenadec, soprano
Estelle Béréau, soprano
Patrick Rudant, bansuri flutes
Nicolas Muzy, theorbo
Nolwenn Le Guern, viola da gamba
Franck-Emmanuel Comte, organ and musical direction
Indian artists :
Manas Vishwaroop, vocal
Prasad Padhye, tabla
Chintan Katti, sitar