The well-known players
François Fernandez, Enrico Gatti, Emilio Moreno, and Fabio Bondi
were part of the first generation of early music pioneers to work
with Chiara Banchini in the ensemble. Twenty years later, the group
and its founder, along with a new team - Odile Edouard,Olivia
Centurioni, David Plantier and Stéphanie Phister, all of whom
studied at the Scola Cantorum in Basel, where Banchini teaches -
continue to discover fresh repertoire and to pass on their
knowledge.
The Ensemble 415 recently created a sensation at
the Folles Journées de Nantes 2003 with a history-making performance
of Corelli’s three Opus 6 concerti. Seventy-five musicians,
including members of Concerto Köln and the Akademie für Alte Musik
Berlin, participated in the concert, which was broadcast on the Arte
channel. The more than fifteen recordings the group made for
Harmonia Mundi, which include Corelli’s Opus 6 concerti for large
orchestra, Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater with Andreas Scholl and Georg
Muffat’s Armonico Tributo, have made lasting contributions in
developing knowledge and performance of seventeenth and
eighteenth-century music.
Their recent rediscovery of the music of Giuseppe
Valentini in a recording for Zig-Zag Territoires, along with the
current recording of Bononcini’s La nemica d’amore fatta amante, are
proof of the group’s tireless search for stylistic integrity and for
the discovery of new repertoire. Soloists who have collaborated with
the Ensemble 415’s productions include Christophe Coin, Roel
Dieltiens, Christiane Jaccottet, René Jacobs, Maria-Cristina Kiehr,
Agnès Mellon, Guy de Mey, Luciano Sgrizzi, Conrad Steinmann,
Geoffrey Lancaster, Andreas Scholl, Giuliano Carmignola, Lars Ulrich
Mortensen, Juliette Galstian, Bart Kuijken, Gilles Thomé, Martin Oro,
Adriana Fernandez, Furio Zanasi and Gaetano Nasillo. The
Franche-Comté region of France has had the honor of underwriting the
Ensemble 415.
