This dazzling large ensemble puts together nine musicians with backgrounds in both contemporary jazz and the baroque world. The sounds of instruments from both eras respond to each other, complementing each other and blending into one another, through compositions based on a selection of poems by Emily Dickinson, the nineteenth-century American poet, and also set against the poetry of PJ Harvey.

This new project is a natural extension of the musician's artistic career, as her previous groups have already demonstrated her ability to compose a rich and original musical universe and to lead a collective project.

As a performer in Eve Risser's White Desert Orchestra and composer and arranger for Frédéric Maurin's Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ), Sylvaine Hélary has a thorough experience of playing and improvising with major jazz and improvised music ensembles.

She works around a language inspired by the silky tones of English pop (for me, beginning with Purcell) and I am developing a new palette of sounds, grooves and polyrhythms, performed by all the members of the orchestra.

The timbres of baroque instruments respond to the electronic textures, around a writing conceived as a field of exploration. This produces not only a juxtaposition of all these different elements, but a creative music with a rich, wide-ranging, and surprising content. Improvisation is given pride of place, bringing together many different approaches to the art of improvisation, which in turn allows each musician to reveal his or her individuality and feed the shared imagination of the ensemble.

The project
It was in 2020 that Sylvaine Hélary began to imagine, build and nurture her latest creation: a dazzling large ensemble, bringing together nine musicians.
This new project is a natural extension of the musician's artistic career, as her previous groups have already demonstrated her ability to compose a rich and original musical universe and to lead a collective project. With this large ensemble, she wanted to add a new dimension to her work as a composer by writing for a larger ensemble, raising new questions about orchestration and enabling her to develop her writing skills. As a performer in Eve Risser's White Desert Orchestra and composer and arranger for Frédéric Maurin's Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ), Sylvaine Hélary has a thorough experience of playing and improvising with major jazz and improvised music ensembles.

After two 'laboratories' - a time for meeting the musicians and experimenting with their instruments - Sylvaine decided on the final line-up for the ensemble. There would be a mix of period instruments such as the sackbut, violone and viola d'amore, and more modern instruments such as flutes, clarinet, drums, keyboards and guitars. The electronics would be performed by Antonin Rayon, using his semi-modular synthesiser and a drum machine, and by Lynn Cassiers, using effects pedals to process her voice in real time.

Having made the most of her two residencies at the Théâtre de Vanves as associate composer, and at the Petit Faucheux in Tours as associate artist, Sylvaine Hélary has received enthusiastic support and guidance from these two partners. In particular, the Théâtre de Vanves and its director Anouchka Charbey chose to co-produce the creation of the large ensemble, making it one of the pivotal projects of her residency and their season. Finally, Anne Tanguy, director of Les 2 Scènes - Scène Nationale de Besançon, has also decided to co-produce and present L’Orchestre Incandescent.