The French-Moroccan soprano, Hasnaa Bennani Lazreq, began her musical education in Rabat with her sister Jalila Bennani and the violin teacher Lászó Fodor, before entering the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (2006-2010), where she studied with Glenn Chambers. Under Howard Crook and Isabelle Poulenard, she specialised in early music at CRR de Paris. She won First Prize at the 2011 Froville International Baroque Singing Competition.
Hasnaa Bennani has worked with a range of leading ensembles, including La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy (Director: Jean-Claude Malgoire), Le Poème Harmonique (Director: Vincent Dumestre), Les Musiciens du Louvre (Director: Marc Minkowski), Les Talens Lyriques (Director: Christophe Rousset), Les Muffatti (Director: Peter Van Heyghen), Le Concert Spirituel (Director: Hervé Niquet), Le Palais Royal (Director: Jean-Philippe Sarcos), La Rêveuse (Directors: Benjamin Perrot and Florence Bolton), Les Ambassadeurs (Director: Alexis Kossenko), Akadêmia Ensemble (Director: Françoise Lasserre), Le Concert Étranger (Director: Itay Jedlin),.
On the stage, Hasnaa Bennani has sung Al-Faïma in Théodore Dubois' Aben-Hamet (Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing), Snow and Spring in Gérard Condé's La Chouette enrhumée (Opéra de Metz), as well as parts in Lully's Armide (a naiad; Opéra national de Lorraine) and Rameau's Castor et Pollux (Cléone, Happy Spirit; Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse 2014). She has formed a duo with harpsichordist Laurent Stewart, performing by invitation at a variety of festivals, e.g. le Festival de Saint-Michel-en-Thiérache, Sinfonia en Périgord, and the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier.
In her extensive list of engagements for the 2015-2016 season: the world premiere of Destouches' ÉÉléments with Les Surprises (Director: Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas), singing Oberto in George Frideric Handel's Alcina with the Accademia Bizantina, conducted by Ottavio Dantone (Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Opéra Royal de Versailles, Halle aux Grains de Toulouse), and appearing as Belinda in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, in a new production by Andreas Linos, directed by Jean-Claude Malgoire (Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing, Théâtre des Champs Élysées), alongside Nicolas Rivenq and Véronique Gens.
In terms of discography, special mention goes to her recordings of François Couperin's Leçons de Ténèbres with Le Poème Harmonique (Alpha) and Lully's Amadis with Les Talens Lyriques, in which she sang Corisande (Aparté). She is preparing a number of upcoming releases, with performances of L'Amour in Rameau's Zaïs with Les Talens Lyriques (Aparté) and a selection of French cantatas (Rameau, Courbois) with Ensemble Stravaganza (Muso). |