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The French viola da gamba player, Lucile Boulanger, began her first viola da gamba lessons at the age of 5 with Christine Plubeau. She continued her studies with Ariane Maurette at the Conservatoire National de Région de Paris (1er prix, 2004), Jérôme Hantaï at the CNR de Cergy, and finally Christophe Coin at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse (CNSMD), where she graduated unanimously (2006-2009). She has won many prizes at prestigious international competitions, such as the Bach-Abel Competition in Köthen (2009), the Concorso della Società Umanitaria in Milan, and the Musica Antiqua Competition in Bruges (2011).
Greatly in demand as a chamber music artist, Lucile Boulanger has appeared and also recorded with Philippe Pierlot, François Lazarevitch, Justin Taylor, Alice Piérot, L’Achéron (the ensemble directed by François Joubert-Caillet) and many others. She also regularly performs with larger ensembles such as Ensemble Pygmalion (Director: Raphaël Pichon), Correspondances (Director: Sébastien Daucé), Vox Luminis (Director: Lionel Meunier), Les Epopées (Director: Stéphane Fuget), Ensemble Les Muses Galantes (Director: Louise Audubert), Ensemble Alia Mens (Director: Olivier Spilmont), and Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien (Director: François Lazarevitch).
Lucile Boulanger gives frequent solo recitals, in France and elsewhere. Her two duo recordings for the Alpha label with Arnaud De Pasquale at the keyboard (J.S. Bach Sonata album in 2012, and works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Graun in 2015) have been widely acclaimed. In 2018 her solo album on Harmonia Mundi, devoted to Forqueray and his passion for the Italian violin sonata, prompted one reviewer to write: ’Sometimes it is the sheer energy that bowls you over, sometimes a caress that makes you tremble, or a naked display of emotion that suddenly overwhelms you - but there is also an equal amount of precision and consistency throughout.’ BBC Music Magazine’s summed up the Forqueray CD with the word ‘irresistible’, comparing its sense of freedom in performance to that of Jacqueline du Pré.
Refusing to view the viola da gamba as the mere vessel of a bygone aesthetic tradition, in her concert programmes Lucile Boulanger aims at expanding and emancipating her instrument’s repertoire, not only through transcriptions, but also by commissioning contemporary works - and many such new works have already been dedicated to her. |
