Insula orchestra/Equilbey: Fauré's Requiem

Laurence Equilbey is one of the leading French conductors of today, combining a distinctive artistic vision and an open-minded approach to her music-making.

She studied with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Eric Ericson, Denise Ham, Colin Metters and Jorma Panula, and first rose to prominence as founder and Music Director of the award-winning chamber choir accentus. In 2012 she created the Insula orchestra (of which she is also Music Director): a period-instrument ensemble focused on repertoire of the Classical and pre-Romantic periods. Together, they have garnered exceptional critical acclaim, made numerous recordings, toured throughout Europe and currently hold a residency here at the Barbican.

In 2017 Insula became the first Orchestra-in- Residence at La Seine Musicale, a state-of-the-art multi-disciplinary arts venue situated to the south-west of Paris. In her position as Artistic Director, Laurence Equilbey oversees the classical music programming, including a major international orchestras series.

Beyond her work with Insula, she appears as a regular guest conductor with the Orchestre National de Lyon and Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg. She is Artist-in-Association with the Grand Théâtre de Provence, and also enjoys a close relationship with the Philharmonie de Paris.

Recent and forthcoming highlights include concerts with BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Barcelona, BBC, Gävle, Gothenburg and Montreal Symphony orchestras, Brussels Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and Handel and Haydn Society. She also works regularly with leading chamber orchestras, as well as the period ensembles Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Concerto Köln.

She is lauded in the theatre for her approach to established works, including innovative stagings of Haydn’s The Creation, Mozart’s Requiem and Weber’s Der Freischütz. She has also conducted Britten’s Albert Herring, Hahn’s Ciboulette and Gounod’s La nonne sanglante.

Laurence Equilbey is also Artistic Director and Director of Education at the Department for Young Singers at the Paris Conservatoire.

Thirteen-year-old Oliver Barlow is a Music Scholar at Trinity School, Croydon, and a senior member of Trinity Boys Choir. He has sung with the choir on tour to Germany and on numerous film soundtracks, including as a soloist. In February he sang the treble solos in Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No 1 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra here at the Barbican and on BBC Radio 3 and recorded the same work with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in September.

He spent the summer performing the role of Puck (Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) at Glyndebourne. Forthcoming engagements include a concert and recording of extracts from Mozart’s The Magic Flute with Opéra de Rouen. He plays the piano and trumpet and studies singing with Katharine Fuge.

John Brancy is equally at home in opera, concert performance and recital, with a wide-ranging repertoire that includes classical, contemporary music and musical theatre.

Highlights last season included his debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in the world premiere of Sir George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This; he also made debuts with Opéra de Montréal as Franz Wolff-Metternich in the world premiere of Julien Bilodeau’s La Beauté du monde; with the Cleveland Orchestra as Jack Wallace (La fanciulla del West) and performed Schubert’s Winterreise in an orchestral arrangement at Theater Erfurt. Current and future highlights include a return to Opéra de Montréal and debuts at the Opéra Comique, Paris, Opéra national du Rhin, Opéra de Rouen, Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Teatro San Carlo, Naples, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

His portrayal of the title-role in Tobias Picker’s Fantastic Mr Fox led to a Grammy in 2020 for Best Opera Recording. Other highlights include Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and Donald (Billy Budd) for San Francisco Opera; Albert (Werther) for the Stadttheater Klagenfurt; Harlequin (Ariadne auf Naxos) for Opéra national de Lorraine; the Steward (Flight) and Demetrius (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for the Pacific Opera Victoria; Pete (Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway) at Oper Frankfurt; Magnussen (Meredith Monk’s Atlas) with the LA Philharmonic and Mercutio (Roméo et Juliette) with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon.

He has appeared in concert with the Boston, Edmonton, Kansas City, San Francisco and Tucson Symphony orchestras and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.

John Brancy is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the Music Academy of the West.

Samoan tenor Amitai Pati came to international attention with an acclaimed concert performance of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2019. He has since made a number of notable debuts, including Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) for San Francisco Opera under Bertrand de Billy; Alfredo (La traviata) with Théâtre du Capitole du Toulouse under Michele Spotti; and concert performances of Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni at the Tanglewood Festival under Andris Nelsons. This season he makes his debut with Opéra national de Paris in Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, and returns to San Francisco Opera for Tamino (The Magic Flute) under Eun Sun Kim.

In the concert hall, last season’s highlights included Mozart’s Requiem with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Gemma New, and with Paris Chamber Orchestra under Hervé Niquet. He also performed Gounod’s Saint François d’Assise with Insula orchestra under Laurence Equilbey in Paris and Aix-en-Provence, the work with which he tonight makes his London concert debut. He also joins his brother Pene Pati and soprano Golda Schultz for an evening of arias, duets and trios with Les frivolités Parisiennes at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

His recordings include a Mozart album with Golda Schultz and the Kammerakademie Potsdam under Antonello Manacorda, to be released later this season; Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and La fanciulla del West, conducted by Lawrence Foster and Handel’s Semele under Peter Walls.

Together with his brother, fellow tenor Pene Pati, and their cousin, baritone Moses Mackey, Amitai Pati is part of the New Zealand-based vocal trio of SOL3 MIO; they have released three albums.

He studied at the Wales International Academy of Voice with Dennis O’Neill, is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco and was invited to join the 2014 Young Singers Project in Salzburg, where he shared the stage with Elīna Garanča, Juan Diego Flórez and Ludovic Tézier.

Mat Collishaw is one of the most significant and compelling artists in contemporary British art. With an early foundation at Goldsmiths College, he formed part of the groundbreaking movement of Young British Artists. He was one of 16 young artists who participated in the seminal Freeze exhibition organised by Damien Hirst in 1988, as well as the provocative Sensation show of 1997.

Throughout his 30-year career, Mat Collishaw has contemplated the nature of the human subconscious and explored ways to influence it through various media. Through optical illusions, paintings, projections and moving sculptures, he creates works and scenarios that directly and unconsciously engage their viewers. The works encourage people to think about fundamental questions of psychology, history, sociology and science. Behind the richness and visual appeal of each one there is a deep exploration of how viewers perceive and are influenced by the world today through images and modern technology.

The chamber choir accentus was founded in 1991 by Laurence Equilbey. It specialises in a cappella repertoire, contemporary music, oratorio and opera. In 2018 it was chosen by the French Ministry of Culture to become the first national centre for vocal art (Paris Ile-de-France, Normandie), strengthening its long-term artistic and educational goals and affirming its national and international reputation.

accentus regularly performs at leading venues and festivals, including the Paris Philharmonie, Seine Musicale, Grand Théâtre de Provence, Salzburg Festival, here at the Barbican, Essen Philharmonie, Theater an der Wien, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Lincoln Center, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and the Hong Kong Arts Festival, among others. It has an artistic residency with the Rouen-Normandie Opéra, as well as working closely with Insula orchestra. Christophe Grapperon has been its associate conductor since 2013.

The choir collaborates with leading conductors, soloists and orchestras, notably Andris Nelsons, Sir Simon Rattle, Philippe Jordan, Simone Young, Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Berliner Philharmoniker, Brigitte Engerer, Bertrand Chamayou, Alain Planès and Edouard Garcin. It has also taken part in numerous operatic productions, including, most recently, Pascal Dusapin’s Macbeth Underworld at the Opéra Comique.

The choir’s award-winning discography includes Transcriptions, which was nominated for a Grammy, and, most recently, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and an a cappella recording of works by Saint-Saëns and Hahn, conducted by Christophe Grapperon. accentus was named Ensemble of the Year by the Victoires de la Musique in 2002, 2005 and 2008.

accentus, National centre for vocal art Paris Ile-de-France – Normandie, receives support from the Ile-de-France Regional direction of cultural affairs, from the French Ministry of Culture, and is subsidised by the city of Paris, the Ile-de-France region and the Normandie region. It is also sponsored by SACEM. The choir is artist-in-residence at the Rouen-Normandie Opera House. accentus’s performing and educational activities receive the support of the Hauts-de-Seine department. The Bettencourt Schueller Foundation is its primary sponsor. accio, the circle of private donors of accentus and Insula orchestra, supports its artistic and educational endeavours.