Alla Francesca was founded in 1989, by members of Ensemble Gilles Binchois. The central members of Alla Francesca are Brigitte Lesne (voice, harp), Emmanuel Bonnardot (voice, fiddle) and Pierre Hamon (winds), and each of the three continues to perform with Ensemble Gilles Binchois as well as their own projects. Lesne directs the female vocal ensemble Discantus, Bonnardot directs the vocal ensemble Obsidienne, while Hamon works as a recorder soloist in a broad range of repertory. As of 2002, Alla Francesca is directed by Hamon alone.
Alla Francesca focuses on the music of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, and works closely with the Center for Medieval Music in Paris. To date, it has recorded exclusively for the Opus 111 label.
Quoting the group's liner note biography: Their repertoire ranges from the art of the troubadours at the end of the eleventh century to the sumptuous polyphonic works of the fifteenth. They perform by turns as soloists and accompanists, recreating all the diversity of this music and offering lively new readings of the different manuscript sources. In the framework of the Centre de Musique Médiévale de Paris, and through their teaching activities there, the members of the ensemble examine these sources in the light of research carried out by musicologists and themselves.
Contact information:
47 rue Bobillot
75013 Paris France
Tel.: 33 (0) 1 45 80 74 49
Fax: 33 (0) 1 45 81 15 14
Email:
allafrancesca@wanadoo.fr
Recordings, listed chronologically by recording date:
Solo recordings by the principal performers:
For discographies of Discantus and Obsidienne, see the respective recording links which indicate this information.