Marc-André Hamelin : le jeu des contrastes

Jonathan Cohen has forged a remarkable career as a conductor, cellist and keyboardist. Well known for his passion and commitment to chamber music Jonathan is equally at home in such diverse activities as baroque opera and the classical symphonic repertoire. He is the new Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society, in addition to continuing as Artistic Director of Arcangelo, Music Director of Les Violons du Roy and Artistic Director of Tetbury Festival.

Throughout the 23-24 season, Jonathan continues to have a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe he guest conducts Budapest Festival Orchestra, Kammerorchester Basel, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege and Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorhcester. In his first season as their new Artistic Director, Jonathan leads the Handel & Haydn Society in Baroque masterpieces including Handel’s Israel in Egypt and Messiah. He conducts further performances of Messiah with San Francisco Symphony whilst projects with Les Violons du Roy include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and a US tour with Milos Karadaglic.

Jonathan founded Arcangelo in 2010 to create high quality bespoke projects. The ensemble was the first named Baroque Ensemble in Residence at Wigmore Hall, where it enjoys a continuing close association, and has toured to exceptional halls and festivals including Philharmonie Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, Barbican Centre, Kölner Philharmonie, Salzburg Festival, MA Festival Bruges, with three appearances at the BBC Proms including the premiere of Handel Theodora (2018) and a televised performance of Bach St Matthew Passion (2021).

Arcangelo’s founding commitment to the recording studio has produced 28 critically lauded albums including Arias for Guadagni and Bach Cantatas with Iestyn Davies (Hyperion; Gramophone Award 2012 and 2017), Mozart Violin Concertos with Vilde Frang (Warner; ECHO Klassik Award 2015) C.P.E. Bach Cello Concertos with Nicolas Altstaedt (Hyperion; BBC Music Magazine Award 2017), Buxtehude Trio Sonatas Op.1 (Alpha Classics; GRAMMY Nominee 2018), Tiranno with Kate Lindsey (Alpha; Sunday Times Records of the Year 2021). Arcangelo’s latest recordings include Sacroprofano with Tim Mead (Alpha; released 2023), Handel Theodora and Buxtehude Opus Posthumous (Alpha; releasing 2024), Handel Chandos Anthems (Alpha; releasing 2025) and a landmark project with Nicolas Altstaedt to make the first survey on period instruments of Boccherini’s Cello Concertos (Alpha).

Violinist Michelle Seto has been a member of the dynamic Quebec City chamber orchestra, Les Violons du Roy since 1992. She has appeared as soloist with some of Canada’s leading orchestras, including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and with her own ensemble, Les Violons du Roy.

As a student, she distinguished herself by winning the first prizes in several of Canada’s national competitions, including the Canadian Music Competition, the CIBC Competition, the Début Series, and the Quebec Symphony Competition. She was the recipient of a Canada Council “B” Grant, which enabled her study to pursue her graduate studies in Boston at the New England Conservatory with James Buswell. Before that, she studied with Mauricio Fuks at McGill University and in London, England. Michelle Seto was born in Shawinigan to Chinese and Filipino parents. She grew up in Vancouver.

Noëlla Bouchard joined Les Violons du Roy in 1995. Since then, she has played in several hundred concerts, some 30 international tours, and numerous recordings with this chamber orchestra in residence at Palais Montcalm – Maison de la musique in Quebec City.

Noëlla Bouchard began learning the violin at the age of five with Lucille Johnstone and continued her studies at Conservatoire de musique de Montréal from 1982 to 1992 in classes taught by Johanne Arel, Raymond Dessaints, Robert Verebes, Denis Brott, and Raffi Armenian. She earned her first award there in 1992. From 1992 to 1995 she continued to hone her skills with Moshe Hammer in Toronto. In 1994 she was a finalist at the International Stepping Stone Canadian Music Competition in Vancouver.  She has participated in a number of workshops at Domaine Forget, Camp musical des Laurentides, and Orford Musique.

In recent years, Noëlla Bouchard has been invited to Concerts du Bic (2016) and the Music and Beyond Festival in Ottawa (2018) and has played on a recording of André Mathieu’s chamber music with pianist Jean-Michel Dubé (2019).

“A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times), pianist Marc-André Hamelin is known worldwide for his unrivaled blend of consummate musicianship and brilliant technique in the great works of the established repertoire, as well as for his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries – in concert and on disc – earning his place as a true icon of the piano. He regularly concertizes around the globe with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time and performs recitals for the major concert venues and festivals worldwide.

Mr. Hamelin is an exclusive recording artist for Hyperion Records where his discography spans more than 70 albums, with notable recordings of a broad range of solo, orchestral and chamber repertoire. In January 2022, they released a two-disc set of CPE Bach Sonatas & Rondos that received wide critical acclaim and chart success.

Mr. Hamelin has composed music throughout his career, with nearly 30 compositions to his name. The majority of those works – including the Études and Toccata on L’Homme armé, commissioned by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition – are published by Edition Peters. His other most recent work, Suite à l’ancienne (Suite in the old style), was premiered in February 2021 by pianist Rachel Naomi Kudo with funding from her Gilmore Young Artist Award.

Mr. Hamelin makes his home in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB. Born in Montreal, he is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the German Record Critics’ Association and has received seven Juno Awards and eleven Grammy nominations, the 2018 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance awarded by Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and in December 2020 was awarded the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Keyboard Artistry from the Ontario Arts Foundation. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.