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The Swiss counter-tenor, Thierry Dagon, made his first stages in music on the piano when he was 9 years old, followed by a summary training of the organ. After having obtained a diploma of a commercial school, he took his first singing lessons when he was 21, with Olivier Dufour, professor who immediately encouraged him to persevere in the register of counter-tenor.
Thierry Dagon's studies included: Diploma of oboe and chamber music with Jean-Paul Goy. Course of Baroque oboe and the Renaissance with the Nile Ferber. Course of double-bass in the class of Francis Marcellin. Theoretical classes with Louis-Marc Suter (counterpoint, harmony, analysis of forms), Michel Perret (musical theory) and Paul-Andre Gaillard (history of the music). Vocal technique with Marie-Francoise Schuwey and interpretation with René Jacobs at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, lead to a diploma of teaching of singing. Virtuosity of singing in the class of Tiny Westendorp (Conservatoire de Fribourg). His training courses included Chamber Music [with Jeanine Gaudibert, Paulette Zanlonghi, Pierre Wavre, Robert Kemblinsky, Jean-Paul Goy, Francis Marcellin, Nils Ferber]; Singing [with Hugues Cuénod (French mélodie), René Jacobs (various training courses apart from the regular courses, on Georg Philipp Telemann, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Venetian opera, Roman opera), Nicolai Gedda (vocal technique), Cathy Berberian (contemporary music), Dominique Vellard (plainsong, improvised counterpoint, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, medieval music), Solange Chiaparin (French mélodie), Béatrice Cramoix (gestic Baroque), Sigiswald Kuijken (l’opéra lullyste), Jean-Claude Malgoire (Italian ornamentation); Theory [Louis-Marc Suter (musicology), Jacques Hourlier (Palaeography), Jean Claire (Gregorian Semiology), Jacques Guilmard (Gregorian Semiology); Various [Jean-Marie Auberson (direction of orchestra), Rainer Boesch (improvisation).
Before becoming a soloist, Thierry Dagon had been engaged in the Baroque repertoire, which gave him the opportunity to sing with the best orchestras specialised in this music, at the sides of the greatest current soloists. However, he likes to widen his horizon with all the styles, and the fact of having taken part in grinds creations (Edouard Garo, Jacques Demierre, Max Jendly, Denis Levaillant, Dominique Gesseney, Balz Trümpy, Michel Wintsch, Thierry Besançon, Jean-Louis Petit, etc.) does not prevent him from liking sometimes to take floweret with jazz or popular music.
Concerts have lead Thierry Dagon practically to most of the cities of Switzerland and France, as well as to Quebec, Italy, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Belgium and the Czech Republic. He has participated in the big international festivals (Music Festivals of Schlesswig-Holstein, Ambronnay, Strasbourg, festival de Musique sacrée de Fribourg, festival Bach de Lausanne, etc.). Concurrently he has appeared in concerts of Lieder recitals, oratorios, and opera, and has taken part in radio, TV and CD recordings.
Thierry Dagon is also a head of choir and was connected with the dancers Da Motus! from 1992 to 2002. After having been a soloist of the choir of Radio Lugano then member of the Ensemble Musicatreize de Marseille, he was a soloist of the Parlement de Musique de Strasbourg (directed by Martin Gester), with which he recorded a Mass of Victoria, a CD of cantatas by Bruhns (choc du Monde de la musique, December 1997) and Vêpres de la Vigie de Noël by Giovanni Battista Bassani (Great International Prize of the Foundation Cini of Venice, best vocal disc 1998, Diapason of Gold, January 1998, FFFF of Télérama and 10 of Repertory for February 1998). With Basler Madrigalisten and Schweizer Kammerchor, he has sung under the direction of Fritz Näf, Frans Brüggen, Pierre Boulez, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Charles Dutoit, Claudio Abbado...
Thierry Dagon is glad to perform also lighter repertory (Comedian Harmonists, rock'n'roll revisited in dialect bernois…) with Sing Tonic, of which he was a part since 2004. However, he dedicates most of his time to musical writing (music electro-acoustic, films, choral, performances of musical theatre, stage...). His interest for the composition lies especially in the experiment of the multi-field reports which he can imply with the writers, the painters, the scenario writers and the choreographers.
After having taught recorder and oboe in various schools for music, Thierry Dagon gives courses of vocal technique in deprived, but also within the framework of the Société Cantonale des Chanteurs Fribourgeois and the Association Vaudoise des Chefs de chœur. He directs the Ensemble Vocal Carmina, the chœur Mixte de Bulle, and the Ensemble Vocal Féminin Arcana.
In the field of journalism, Thierry Dagon is corresponding Fribourgeois for "Revue Musicale de Suisse Romande", practises the criticism of disc for "Revue Suisse des Musiciens" and is the French-speaking writer of Chorus, the newspaper of the Union Suisse des Chorales. |
