The artistic director
The tasks of the artistic director are varied, and require a wide range of skills as well as continuous dialogue. The tasks include: choosing the programmes, training the choir singers, animating the weekly rehearsals and work weekends, performing the orchestral accompaniment on the piano, planning and carrying out rehearsals with orchestras, directing the concerts, providing a line of development and an identity to the choir, maintaining relations with institutional partners and professional musicians, promoting young talents, collaborating with the committee for administrative management and concert preparation.
Born in Annecy, France, Matthieu Schweyer graduated from the Conservatory of Music in Annecy, where he was awarded Gold medals for cello and for piano. He continued his training with Sébastien Risler at the higher conservatory of music in Geneva, where he earned diplomas in concert piano and piano pedagogy. He also obtained certificates in orchestra conducting (with Michel Corboz), counterpoint and music theory. He holds a French state diploma in accompaniment and conducting.
Matthieu took over the direction of the Orphée Vocal Ensemble in 2002. Since then he has conducted inter alia Cherubini’s Requiem, Brahms’ Chant du Destin, Dvořák’s Mass in D, Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Beethoven’s Cantata WoO 87, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Saint John’s Passion (Bach), the requiems of Fauré and of Schumann, Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, Mass in B (Bach), Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Beethoven’s Fantasy op. 80, Hummel’s Mass op.111, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem,f the Miserere, Magnificat, Requiem in D by Zelenka, Gloria by Poulenc, the Psalms Symphony by Stravinsky, the Misatango by Palmeri, the Stabat Mater by Dvorak, Mozart’s Requiem, Joshua by Handel, the Creation by Haydn, the 9th Symphony by Beethoven, Orff’s Carmina Burana and the Stabat Mater by Rossini.