About
Pygmalion (fr. Pygmalion) - French ensemble (baroque orchestra and choir), specializing in the performance of music of the Baroque era. Pygmalion was founded and headed by Raphael Pichon (Pichon; born in 1984) in 2006. The headquarters of the ensemble (since 2014) is located at the Bolshoi Theater in Bordeaux. The activities of "Pygmalion" are subsidized by the municipal government of Bordeaux.
He has performed at renowned international music festivals - Baroque music in Ambron (since 2009), Opera de Bonne (since 2011), opera house in Aix-en-Provence, Nantes “Folle Journée” - and at famous concert venues, incl. at the Royal Chapel of Versailles and at the National Opera of Bordeaux. Considerable attention in the Pygmalion's repertoire is paid to the renewal (“reconstruction”) of little-known and rarely performed Baroque music. Thus, in 2016 (at the National Opera of Lorraine) the premiere of the opera Orpheus by L. Rossi took place.
Vocal and instrumental music of the Baroque (church music by J.S.Bach, operas by J.F. Ramo) prevails among the collective's audio recordings. The audio recordings have won numerous critical awards, including the Victoire de la Musique (2015, for JS Bach's Köthen Mourning Music, BWV 244a, in Pichon's “reconstruction”). The Pygmalion Choir was awarded the Bettencourt-Schueller Fondation Award in 2014. Since 2011, the ensemble has also performed and recorded the music of the Romantic era (G. Berlioz, F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdi, sacred music by I. Brahms and A. Bruckner, etc.).