Season 2021-2022

The times we are all going through force us to think deeply about our way of life, our “being in the world”. Society, caught between the hammer of the virus and the anvil of climate change, is being pushed to its very limits. It must transform itself towards more responsibility, more equity, more generosity.

All these values have been conveyed and embodied by Les Dissonances for 15 years. Nowhere near an allegory of the control society, Les Dissonances are more than ever the necessary metaphor of a world of sharing in joy, excellence, and the respect of each and everyone. The George Enescu International Festival rightly invites us for two exceptional concerts to celebrate its 25th anniversary. This festival, one of the most prestigious in the world, invites the greatest orchestras and Les Dissonances are proud to belong to its regular guests. On the occasion of these concerts, which will be partly performed during a French tour at the International Music Festival of Besançon Franche-Comté as well as at Le Volcan – Scène Nationale du Havre and at the Philharmonie de Paris, Les Dissonances will release a record dedicated to Chausson, Ravel and Enescu with La Dolce Volta.

This new season will also take us back to our audience in Antwerp for a program built around Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony, a Russian program that will be performed at the Philharmonie de Paris and at Le Volcan – Scène Nationale du Havre.

The season will conclude with a Brahms/Dvořák program featuring Dvořák’s magnificent Violin Concerto and Brahms’ sublime Third Symphony.

The musical world is recovering from an unprecedented crisis. Les Dissonances, with an unmatched fighting spirit, set out again to conquer new European territories to continue to convey to the public and to the musicians of the young generation the unique art of sharing and research. Generosity, freedom, creativity will be the seeds of our future!

David Grimal