The musicians
Ariane Brückner
Ariane Brückner was born in Geneva, where she began her musical training in Florence Bœuf-Albert’s recorder class.
She obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the Centre de Musique Ancienne de Genève (class of Gabriel Garrido), then a Master in Music Pedagogy and a Master of Arts in Music Performance from the Bern University of the Arts (class of Carsten Eckert).
Specialising in early music, her studies in Bern enabled her to deepen her knowledge of the contemporary repertoire. Alongside her recorder studies, Ariane Brückner studied baroque oboe with Carole Wiesmann and Vivian Berg.
She regularly gives concerts with a number of ensembles, including Ensemble Baroque du Léman, Carpe Diem Genève, Libeccio, Orchestre Baroque Musica Poetica and Orchestre Buissonnier.
In collaboration with Ensemble A3, she creates concerts for children, including a musical show based on Pierre Gripari’s fairy tale “The Witch in the Broom Closet”.
Ariane Brückner teaches the recorder at the Espace Musical (Geneva) and introductory music lessons at primary schools (DIP).
Constanze Chmiel
Constanze Chmiel’s speciality is the early flute: the recorder and the traverso. With these two instruments, she plays music from the Renaissance to the Classical period. During her studies in Berlin (Universität der Künste) in the class of Christoph Huntgeburth and in Geneva (Haute École de Musique) in the classes of Gabriel Garrido and Serge Saïtta, she obtained several artistic and pedagogical diplomas. She has also furthered her training by taking part in numerous masterclasses, notably with Marc Hantaï, Han Tol and Dorothee Oberlinger. In addition to her musical background, Constanze Chmiel holds a Master’s degree in Music and German (literature and language) from the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.
As a member of several chamber music ensembles, she participated in the Fringe Concerts in Utrecht and was a finalist in the Händel Competition in Göttingen (with ombre et soleil). In 2014, she was invited to do a residency during the Académie Baroque de Montfrin with the Geneva-based ensemble Ebálides. Constanze performs regularly with ensembles such as Ensemble Baroque de Joux, Le Moment Baroque, L’Ensemble de l’Encyclopédie, Ensemble Elyma (dir. Gabriel Garrido) as well as at various festivals alongside Chiara Banchini, François Nicolet, Hadrien Jourdan, Bertrand Cuiller and Jonathan Rubin.
www.constanzechmiel.com
Féodora Diakoff
Born in Geneva, Féodora Diakoff comes from a family of musicians and singers. She began playing the piano at the age of six, continuing with the recorder at the CPM in Geneva, in Claude Bonzon’s class. In 2009, she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Early Music from the HEM in Geneva, with Gabriel Garrido, and in 2011 completed her first Master’s degree in Music Pedagogy. After spending a year at the Conservatorio Superior de Música Manuel Castillo in Seville with Vicente Parrilla, where she perfected her technique and delved deeper into the Spanish Renaissance repertoire that is so dear to her, she completed a Master’s degree in Performance in 2014, still in Gabriel Garrido’s class, and was awarded the Prix Spécial de la Ville de Genève.
Alongside her recorder training, Féodora completed a certificate in modern oboe with Béatrice Zawodnik at the Geneva Conservatoire, before turning to Baroque and Renaissance oboes, which she studied with Nils Ferber. Féodora is also interested in singing, which she studied and performed in a variety of amateur and semi-professional choirs.
During her training, Féodora Diakoff played with conductors such as Ton Koopman, Gabriel Garrido, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon and Florence Malgoire. She now performs with a variety of ensembles, moving from ancient to modern repertoire and varying the instruments used: Opéra-Studio, Orchestre Buissonier, Orquesta Sinfónica Hispalense, Capella Genevensis, Coro de la Universidad de Sevilla, Coro de Cámara de Sevilla, Choeur Diakoff.
In 2015, she created her first ensemble, ‘Las Vacas’, which performs popular Spanish repertoire from the Renaissance and early Baroque periods, combining singing, vihuela, recorder consort and percussion. Under the impetus of lute-player Boris Constanzo, this initial group gave birth to a new ensemble, Fantasia Ficta, devoted more to Italian composers of the early Baroque period. Féodora is also a member of Ensemble Libeccio, founded in 2015, which focuses on the Renaissance and Baroque repertoire for recorder consorts.
Estelle Thévenoz
After studying musicology at the University of Geneva and playing the recorder with Marcos Volonterio (Bachelor of Music and Musicology), Estelle Thévenoz obtained a Master’s degree in pedagogy in Gabriel Garrido’s recorder class, followed by a Master’s degree in baroque bassoon with Lorenzo Alpert at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève. As part of her studies, she took part in various projects, notably under the direction of Jordi Savall and Leonardo Garcia Alarcon. During summer courses, she was taught the recorder by Pierre Hamon, the dulcian by François de Rudder, the baroque bassoon and the dulcian by Elena Bianchi, and she discovered the classical bassoon with Concerto Cöln.
She plays the bassoon and recorder in a variety of productions: with the Ensemble Baroque de Joux, the Ensemble Genève baroque, the Ensemble Fratres, the Ensemble 7 sed unum, Gli Invaghiti (Italy) and with her recorder consort, the Ensemble Libeccio, or with her group Jonas et le chant des Roseaux, which mixes rap and baroque music.
She teaches the recorder privately, in Laconnex (“APESL” association) and, from September 2019, at Bulle d’Air (Geneva).
Guests
Alexandre Diakoff
Born into a family of musicians, clergymen, farmers and winegrowers, Alexandre Diakoff won a first prize for singing at the Geneva Conservatoire (class of E. Tappy). He then followed a two-year post-graduate course at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow.
Since then, he has regularly performed character roles in opera.
A regular guest at Geneva’s Victoria Hall and Zurich’s Tonhalle, he performs most of the great works of the sacred music repertoire, including Bach’s Passions, as well as works by Lalande, Monteverdi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz, Rossini, Verdi, Dvorak and others.
Alexandre Diakoff also works as a choirmaster. He sings and sings litanies in concerts of Russian liturgical music.
www.alexandrediakoff.ch
Born in Geneva, Vanessa Monteventi started playing the violin and recorder at the age of 5 at the Conservatoire Populaire de Musique, Danse et Théâtre, and went on to study baroque violin with Florence Malgoire and recorder with Gabriel Garrido and Daniele Bragetti at the Haute École de Musique de Genève. After a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s in baroque violin, she completed her studies with a Master’s in Music Pedagogy, as well as a Certificate of Advanced Studies for the recorder (instrumental improvement and interpretation).
During her studies, she took part in numerous courses and masterclasses given by Enrico Gatti, Olivia Centurioni, Riccardo Minasi, Stéphanie Paulet, Sophie Gent, Nicolette Moonen, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Bojan Čičić, Walter van Hauwe, Barthold Kuijken, Pierre Hamon, and Instruments of Time and Truth (Oxford). She contributes to recordings of Leonardo García Alarcón (Sony), Florence Malgoire (Claves), Le Petit Trianon (Ricercar), and Les Argonautes (Aparté), and performs regularly as a violinist and recorder player in Switzerland and abroad with Cappella Mediterranea, Gli Angeli Genève, Pulcinella, Cantatio, l’Ensemble Baroque du Léman, Le Moment Baroque, Temenos, Les Argonautes, la Chapelle Vocale de Lausanne, Le Harmoniche Sphere, L’Encyclopédie, Stradivaria (Nantes), Brandenburg Baroque Soloists (London)…
Louis Poupelin
Born in Paris in 1988, Louis Poupelin began his percussion studies at the CRR de Cergy-Pontoise, in Alain Huteau’s class, before going on to study with teachers specialising in orchestral music, such as François Desforges, Nicolas Martynciow, Emmanuel Curt, Frédéric Macarez and Eric Sammut.
In 2012, he entered the HEM in Geneva in the class of Yves Brusteaux, Philippe Spiesser and Christophe Delanoy, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in 2015. It was in Geneva that he broadened his repertoire by learning about baroque music through various projects with the Centre de Musique Ancienne. He has worked with Kenneth Weiss and Gabriel Garrido, among others. His curiosity regularly pushes him towards new musical experiences, notably jazz and African music. He also passes on his passion by teaching percussion in various music schools.
Sarah Walder
Born into a family of music lovers, it was in her teens that violist Sarah Walder developed a vocation for music and the distinctive timbre of the viola da gamba. Her meeting with Cecilia Knudtsen, with whom she began learning the instrument at Geneva’s Conservatoire Populaire de Musique, Danse et Théâtre, proved decisive. After joining the pre-professional class at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, she continued her studies with Guido Balestracci at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève, where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in instrumental performance, followed by a Master’s degree in pedagogy (2019).
Sarah Walder performs regularly in concert with a number of ensembles in the Geneva region, including Cordes en Echo, La Messaggera, L’Ensemble Vocal de Poche, Libeccio and Les Souspirs. She recently formed the duo Double Teinte with percussionist Catia Olivia. She designed the music for a short film and took part in the recording of “Silvestro Ganassi, La Fontegara” with the ensemble Le Concert Brisé, which won a Diapason d’Or. Her interest in teaching led her to complete her training with a post-graduate course in Jacques Dalcroze pedagogy.