le Quatuor Ellipsos

« Prières  » – Inès Halimi with the Quatuor Ellipsos

A woman's voice, a saxophone quartet. This project, blending music and poetry, questions the notions of the sacred and the profane. "Prières", in the plural, is about recognising the uniqueness of each person – through a multitude of works, both literary and musical – on their inner journey.

THE PROGRAMME

"What is the use of singing if God does not join the dance? I wrote 'Prières' during my writing residency at the Fondation Jan Michalski in the winter of 2023. Perched at the top of my writer's cabin, immersed in a world of reading, daydreaming, walks and encounters – while browsing the Foundation's magnificent library every day – I was able to read and discover poetry from across the world: Greek, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Iraqi, Romanian, Somali, Japanese... Fully immersed in poetry and music over seven weeks, I developed a programme blending music and poetry. From the top of my lodgings, I listened for hours on end to music from every era, in order to select a repertoire in keeping with this theme. So, sacred or profane? I therefore developed a musical programme drawn from both sacred and profane music, notably including excerpts from the Grande Messe en Ut mineur and the motet Exsultate, Jubilate by W. A. Mozart, or the Ave Maria from the opera Otello by G. Verdi. To do so, I carried out a process of musical composition, arrangement, orchestral reduction and rewriting, in order to adapt the works for soprano voice and saxophone quartet. As an opening to the programme, the Sonata en trio no 6 op.3 by A. Corelli, known as a "sonata da chiesa" (church sonata), is a purely instrumental work that was very popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is written for one or two melodic instruments (such as the violin) and is generally accompanied by a basso continuo.