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Founded by flute virtuoso Alexis Kossenko, Les Ambassadeurs is a pan-European ensemble on period instruments which performs a wide repertoire from early Baroque to classical and romantic music and from chamber ensemble to large orchestral settings. The ensemble takes particular interest in the rediscovery of the Dresden Hofkapelle, at J.S. Bach’s time described as “the most beautiful orchestra in the world” for its exemplary discipline, virtuosity of its musicians, its shimmering colors which made it the first ‘modern’ orchestra. It was in Dresden that Italian, French and German styles were united and gave birth to the ‘Goûts Réunis’ treasured by Telemann.
According to Alexis Kossenko, the mission of Les Ambassadeurs is “to share with as wide a public as possible the infinite range of emotions conveyed by the experience of music.” Away from dogmas, fashions and schools, Les Ambassadeurs pursue an ideal of eloquence - where the grammar of period instruments, the art of rhetoric and musical instinct do not exclude each other.
Following the example of the Dresden Hofkapelle, Alexis Kossenko brings together musicians from all parts of Europe. Les Ambassadeurs & Alexis Kossenko performed in Brussels (Bozar – Palais des Beaux-Arts) and Paris (Auditorium du Louvre), in Bruges (including the opening of the MAFestival in 2012), in Germany (Festspiele Potsdam-Sanssouci), Austria (Trigonale Festival), Slovenia (Brezice Festival), Poland (Festivals in Poznan, Paradyz and Warsaw), Latvia (International Bach Chamber Music Festival, Riga), Bulgaria (Sofia Baroque Arts Festival), The Netherlands and Belgium, with large scale works including secular and religious works from Dresden, Rameau’s Dresden and George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. In 2014 their performances of G.F. Handel’s Tamerlano at the Opera of Poznan met with huge success.
Since its foundation in 2012, Les Ambassadeurs has recorded five CD’s, with music by Vivaldi (Concerti per l’orchestra di Dresda), Rameau (Le Grand Théatre de l’Amour, on Erato), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (trio sonatas), Georg Philipp Telemann (ouverture, flute and violin concertos, for Alpha, and “Tempesta”, an album with arias by Antonio Vivaldi and G.F. Handel starring mezzo-soprano Blandine Staskiewicz, for Glossa (these last two titles to be released in March 2015). |
