Great Southern Series Concert 1
Tuesday 16 July, 1pm
Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Tickets $20 – $25
La Cigale de Lyon
World Showcase Series Concert 3
Friday 19 July, 7pm
Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Tickets $25 – $35
La Cigale de Lyon is a French children’s choir whose members are carefully selected amongst young singers in the Lyons area. The chorus was originally founded in 1947 by Christian Wagner, and Anne-Marie Cabut has been its artistic director and conductor since 1995.
La Cigale de Lyon is affiliated with the French federation A Cœur Joie. It was the very first children’s choir to join the European Choral Association Europa Cantat, and it is also a member of the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM).
Its repertoire includes a sundry range of styles with musical open-mindedness at the heart of all preoccupations as it is the very essence of the choir’s existence: from a capella classical music to the same with a piano accompaniment all the way up to one-off, specially-created polyphonies.
La Cigale de Lyon won many international prizes and had the great opportunity of benefiting from really powerful musical experiences when working with outstanding conductors. It is often invited to prestigious festivals and has toured in Europe, USA, South America, Japan and China. It regularly welcomes in France choirs from all over the world. La Cigale de Lyon takes the initiative for musical creation. In January 2006, the composer Serge Folie was commissioned by it to create the show “Éclats de l’Eau“.
La Cigale de Lyon regularly releases CDs.
The individual treasures carried by every child give the group a real strength that allows it to work wonders through effort and harmony.
Anne-Marie Cabut, Artistic Director
Teacher of music and choir singing, she was a former student of Christian Wagner at the Conservatory of Lyon before taking over him as conductor of La Cigale de Lyon in 1995. She also received additional training from renowned people like Hélène Guy, Pierre Cao, Eric Ericson.
She has been in charge of the children choir field within the A Cœur Joie France federation since 2001 and is also the artistic director of La Chanterie A Coeur Joie de Lyon, an association of children choirs gathering together 500 young singers from 5 to 18 years old.
She regularly attends to international events: Choralies, Europa Cantat, World Symposium for Choral Music. She is often called upon as a guest conductor to lead youth gatherings and master classes in France or abroad. During the past few years, she regularly worked with various composers for the creation of new works. Besides, she is highly sought-after by several organizations as a resource person, in order to elaborate musical and pedagogic projects for children and youth choirs.
She does a wonderful job with La Cigale de Lyon, relying on the excellence and the richness of the past while leading her singers towards new trails, with another type of repertoire involving choreography and staging.