
Ensemble
Près de votre oreille
In 2017, after a first recording named L'Anonyme Parisien, (Paraty, 2016), Robin Pharo creates the ensemble Près de votre oreille (“Near Your Ear”) at the Timisoara Early Music festival, in Romania, in a program devoted to La Descente d'orphie aux enfers composed by Ma(c-Antoine Charpentier and two gamba pieces composed by Marin Marais.
Près de votre oreille is an idea that is near and dear to his heart.
With its strangeness and poetry, it has established itself as the singular identity of a young ensemble that wishes to share the curiosity of unusual ancient jewels. Following an original passion, the ensemble strives to create projects related to the history of the viola da gamba, which allows its director to share both his love of the solo repertoire and that of chamber music.
The ensemble Près de votre oreille performs in famous places such as La Scala Paris, Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet and Grévin Theater in Paris (Philippe Maillard Production), Nasz Telemann festival in Poland, festival Musical du Hainaut in Belgium, the Embaroquement Immédiat Festival, at the Midsummer festival, in Hardelot, Lille's opera, Rencontres de Musique en Trégor, Rencontres Musicales de Bel-air or earlymusic festival in Tarentaise.
In collaboration with the Centre Culturel de L'Entente Cordiale, he recorded Come Sorrow (Paraty, 2018) at the Château d'Hardelot Elizabethan Theatre. In September 2018, Près de votre oreille will be in residence in the city of Longjumeau for the creation of the piece Le Manuscrit de Voynich, composed for mezzo-soprano and a consort of violas da gamba by the Bulgarian composer Yassen Vodenitcharov.This project marks an important milestone in the history of the ensemble, which wishes more than ever to deepen its interest in English music, from which it draws today a part of its identity and an inexhaustible source of beauty.
In october 2018, he will present a the Consevatory of Gennevilliers the show named Les Trois Ailes du Papillon (with two dancers and one solo viola da gamba). In 2019, Près de votre oreille will perform at the Opéra de Lille, at the Rencontres Internationales de Musique en Trégor, at the Rencontres Musicales de Bel-Air and at the festival baroque de Tarentaise.
In 2020, Near Your Ear created the Blessed Echoes program, dedicated to a great English tradition of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era: The Lute Songs (residency at La Cité de la Voix de Vézelay and co-production with the Elizabethan theatre of Hardelot Castle).
In 2021, the album Suite d'un goût étranger (label Château de Versailles Spectacles) was released, devoted to the famous sequel composed by Marin Marais. The same year, for the Paraty label, the ensemble recorded its Blessed Echoes programme in collaboration with the Festival and the Cité Musicale de l'Abbaye aux dames de Saintes (published in 2023).
In 2022, Près de votre oreille will be the source of two new English creations: A Byrd Celebration, which will pay tribute to the music of William Byrd, through his 4-voice mass (creative residency at the Embaroquement Immédiat festival) and Lighten Mine Eyes, dedicated to the Harp Consort and unknown Sacred Songs with troix voix by William Lawes (premiered at the Festival de Saintes).
The ensemble Près de votre oreille also wants to express itself by trying to meet one of the most important challenges for all musicians specialized in the interpretation of ancient repertoires on period instruments: develop contemporary composition on abandoned and rediscovered instruments and thus try to preserve the fabulous creativity that accompanied this rediscovery. In 2018, the ensemble created the piece entitled Voynich’s Manuscript, composed by the Bulgarian composer Yassen Vodenitcharov for mezzo-soprano and viola da gamba consort and presented at the Gennevilliers Conservatory the show The Three Wings of the Butterfly (for two dancers and one viola), which presents works by Rika Suzuki, Yassen Vodenitcharov and Jean-Marc Chouvel. In duo with Anaïs Bertrand, Robin Pharo creates a cycle for viola da gamba and voice entitled The Waves and composed by Fabien Touchard, to whom the ensemble also commissions a piece for consort of viola gamba and voice in 2023.