About the Vocal ensemble
brilliant Belgian vocal ensemble
Artists:
Teodora Tommasi & Florencia Menconi, soprano
Andrew Hallock, alt
Albert Riera, Andrés Miravete & Marius Peterson, tenor
Tomàs Maxé & Arnout Malfliet, bass
Lluis Coll i Trulls, cornett
Berlinde Deman, serpent
Pierre-Antoine Tremblay & Christopher Price, horn
Manuel Mota, e-guitar
Founded in 1999, Graindelavoix is an Antwerp-based music and art ensemble. Helmed by founder-director Björn Schmelzer, it is committed to offering a contemporary and critical interpretation of mainly historical, vocal repertoires.
The ensemble’s artistic allure, distinctive sound, plastic performance style and rigorous programming—the whole characterised by an uncanny touch—makes it both unique and difficult to situate in the current artistic landscape. Its critical questioning of old repertoires—their aesthetic and political dimensions, their displacement and alienation—meanwhile often leads to controversial performances in which the audience is not just challenged but also made complicit.
In addition to the company’s core singers, musicians and usual suspects, Graindelavoix regularly collaborates with other musicians, visual artists, dancers and theatremakers. Collaborations include: Cesena (2011), with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s dance company Rosas; Maastricht Cryptonomies (2014), with Manuel Mota and Margarida Garcia; and Epitaphs of Afterwardsness (2022), with pianist Jan Michiels.
Over the last decade, they have also engaged in collaborative programmes revolving around Mediterranean Sufism (together with Hassan Boufous and the sisterhood of Chefchaouen), and Byzantine chant (Adrian Sîrbu).
Other programmes have incorporated texts by Samuel Beckett—in the case of the insomnia-themed And Underneath the Everlasting Arms; and special audience set-ups on location—such as the four-hour Gesualdo Tenebrae marathon.
Graindelavoix and Schmelzer have made three independent feature films, of which Ossuaires (2012) and Outlandish (2016) are performed as ciné concerts with a live soundtrack. The mockumentary Van Eyck Diagrams (2021) is a critical reflection on the painter Jan van Eyck, art historical research and contemporary cultural marketing. The film was screened in Ghent (De Bijloke), Hanover (Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen), Utrecht (Early Music Festival), Antwerp (De Cinema) and Warsaw (New Epiphanies).
Further projects include exhibitions (Time Regained), book projects and cultural websites (darkvaneyck.com).
From 2014–2019, Graindelavoix undertook a five-year residency at the Fondation Royaumont, near Paris, producing new works, concerts and masterclasses.
The ensemble currently performs all over the world, having appeared on the most important stages for early and classical music, as well as at contemporary art festivals.
The label Glossa, with whom Graindelavoix has released 17 records (plus other hybrid-format works) since 2004, puts out a new CD by the ensemble every year, produced by sound engineer Alex Fostier. Each recording offers a new sound experience or interpretation of a musical repertoire. A triple CD featuring Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsoria (2020) was hailed by critics as a benchmark recording, while Josquin The Undead was declared the most original production of “Josquin Year” in 2021, gaining several prizes. Both records received the prestigious Caecilia award from the Belgian music press, while Josquin The Undead was also awarded the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2022.
In 2012, the group’s socio-cultural project/CD Muntagna Nera (concerning the revival of Limburg’s so-called “coalmine blues”) was released by EMI/Warner.
The ensemble, which receives financial backing from the Flemish Community, is currently resident at Ghent’s Muziekcentrum De Bijloke.
