Arti Shuffle Young Musicians: Gaia Szames & Lóránt Illyés
Arti Shuffle Young Musicians #3
Arti Shuffles Young Musicians is a collaboration between Arti and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. This concert series offers talented young musicians the opportunity to gain valuable performance experience and showcase their artistry at various venues. Audiences are invited to discover a new generation of musicians through a diverse programme filled with inspiring and surprising performances.
Arti Shuffle Jonge Musici: Gaia Szames & Lóránt Illyés
This programme is centred around the air de cour, the French court song that flourished from the late sixteenth century through the reign of Louis XIII. Written for voice and plucked-string instruments, these intimate songs were performed in salons and private chambers rather than on grand stages. Their themes revolve around love, longing, heartbreak, and pastoral imagery, populated by shepherds, shepherdesses, nymphs, and gods.
The programme traces the development of the genre through several generations of composers. Adrian Le Roy and Charles Tessier represent its early stages, when the air de cour was still closely connected to the Renaissance chanson. Le Roy was also a prominent music publisher and co-founder of the Ballard printing house, which would become the leading publisher of French court music for the next two centuries. Pierre Guédron, who directed music at the courts of Henri IV and Louis XIII, and his son-in-law and successor Antoine Boesset, helped shape the genre into a more expressive and theatrical form. Étienne Moulinié, music director to Gaston d'Orléans for more than three decades, brought a distinctive harmonic richness to the tradition. Bénigne de Bacilly, renowned as both a composer and singing teacher, left behind one of the most important treatises on ornamentation and performance practice of the period.
Much of the repertoire performed in this concert survives thanks to the publications of the Ballard family press. Together, these songs offer a rare glimpse into the intimate musical world of seventeenth-century France.
This is a programme built on subtle gestures, intimate expression, and careful listening.
Gaia Szames is an Argentinian soprano based in Amsterdam, specialising in Early Music. Her main focus lies in Italian monody and madrigals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as French music from the same period.
Active as both a soloist and ensemble singer, she has performed under the direction of Andrés Locatelli, Adrián van der Spoel, Eduardo López Banzo and others. She has explored a wide range of repertoires, including Spanish and Latin American polyphony with Jonatan Alvarado, Italian Renaissance polyphony with Claron McFadden and Mike Fentross, and Spanish and Italian monody with Ensemble La Primavera.
She earned her Bachelor's degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, completed a Master's degree in Advanced Vocal Ensemble Studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, and is currently pursuing a second Master's degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Xenia Meijer.
Lóránt Illyés is a Hungarian musician based in Amsterdam, specialising in Early Music. After earning a Bachelor's degree in Classical Guitar from the University of Szeged's Faculty of Music, he completed a Master's degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
He is currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Early Music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, specialising in lute and theorbo, with a particular interest in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire.
Gaia Szames — soprano
Lóránt Illyés — lute and theorbo
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The Arti Shuffle is a public programme at the artists’ association Arti et Amicitiae, where visual arts, performance, music, literature, and film come together.
In collaboration with Arti members and guest artists, each edition offers a surprising and diverse programme that creates new connections, attracts a broad audience, and brings fresh energy to the society.
-- > Would you like to join us for dinner before the event? Please make a reservation via societeit@arti.nl or call +31 (0)20 623 2995.
