Black Is The Colour

Alpha continues its collaboration with the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and its Academy, which will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2018. We invite you to discover artists of great talent who take us on a trip to Auvergne, Sicily, Armenia and Azerbaijan thanks to Luciano Berio's Folk Songs, to Andalusia with Falla's Psyché on a poem of Georges-Jean Aubry, and to the world of Jules Renard with Ravel's Histoires naturelles. The last-named are recorded in a version for chamber ensemble: 'Since Ravel gave Manuel Rosenthal to make an arrangement for large orchestra which we found rather overblown, we set out to find a "chasseur d'images" (to quote the title of one of Renard's Histoires naturelles poems) who could transcribe the work without losing its intimate, delicate aspect. . . . We hope you will be as charmed as we are by Arthur Lavandier's work, which beautifully conveys the immensely refined timbres and nuances of Ravel', says the oboist Clément Noël, a member of the Swiss Ensemble Labyrinth.

Anna Stéphany is a true revelation, performing this programme with the technique, the sensuality and the emotional impact that earned her a huge triumph in Mozart at last summer's Glyndebourne Festival.