The new viol duo brings flair and brilliance to their performances! Mélisande Corriveau, viol and recorder virtuoso, and Susie Napper have performed together as members of Les Voix humaines Consort for two decades and collaborated on many projects. They both play on historic viols by London luthier, Barak Norman.
The duo builds on decades of performances worldwide by Susie Napper and Margaret Little who’s musical complicity was compared to the skill of a pair of trapeze artists or the telepathic communion of jazz artists. Their many prizes and recordings are the foundation on which the new duo will build a creative repertoire and innovative style to inspire a new generation of music-lovers.
Anguille sous roche – Something Fishy, the new duo’s first recording and video features delicacies from the French repertoire offering humour, virtuosity and tenderness in a unique, creative programme.
In 2021 Les Voix humaines (Susie Napper and Mélisande Corriveau and Felix Deak) was joined by Jessy Dubé to take a refreshing look at the huge repertoire for multiple viols. Our unique, controversial ideas offer a new profile to consort playing in which rhythmic freedom and ornamentation play an integral role.
As well as the grand English consort repertoire, Bach’s Art of Fugue and the Purcell Fantasias, the Consort performs lesser known discoveries by Cima, Trabaci, Lupo, Moulinier and Charpentier to which we bring years of experience and experimentation as viol, recorder, fiddle and bass violinists!
The consort has toured in Canada, USA, Mexico, France, Poland, Scandinavia and the Baltic States and recorded Bach’s Art of Fugue, Purcell’s Fantasias, Dowland’s Lachrimae as well as their own, unusual arrangement or Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagioni for equal viols: 4 Seasons, 4 Viols.
As Tobias Hume wrote in 1605: Now to use a modest shortness, and a brief expression of my self to all noble spirits, I was named Femme de Merite, Montreal, 2011 and Personality of the year, Prix Opus 2002!
Devotee of Renaissance and baroque music, enthusiast of historic instruments, travel and gourmet food, Mélisande Corriveau is mother to two charming adolescents!
I don’t remember life without music. I could say that cello was my first language. I started studying the Suzuki method from age 2 and a half. The bass viol entered my life only in 2007.
Hailing from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, Jessy Dubé started her musical career at the Conservatoire de Musique de Saguenay, Quebec, and pursued her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Basel, in Switzerland.
