Peter’s principal activity as a musician took a sharp turn when he met Agathe Mayeres in a joint conservatoire project in 2015, on the eve of his retirement as director of the Frederic Chopin Conservatoire in Paris.
Together in 2016, they founded the Ensemble Via Luce which has gone from strength to strength over the three years they have worked together. The coming season will soon be announced.
Via Luce’s principal activity has so far been centred on Bach’s cantatas, a stunning and (outside the small circle of cognoscenti) little known and extraordinarily rich corpus of music ranging from the intimate (short solo works) to the heroic (impressive and powerful religious operas) with their contingent of brass, drums and woodwind adding their weight to the virtuoso strings and counterpoint of the vocal ensemble.
In this, they have been fortunate to benefit from the advice of experts in the field of informed performance practice and have continued to perform on both period and modern instruments.
Its musicians are mature students from the different French and European conservatoires and colleges of music as well as young professionals at the beginning of their careers.
Amongst its various missions, Via Luce aims to promote its musicians by offering them the possibility to perform as soloists or conductors during their season. Last season, they performed three solo concerti (Saint-Saëns, Bottesini and Beethoven) and next will perform three more (Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Mozart) while giving the opportunity to the young and promising conductor Noé Chapolard to conduct the Mendelssohn violin concerto in a programme of his choosing.
Via Luce also organizes other events including an annual competition for young musicians in conjunction with the Paris Rotary Club.
Its repertory extends from Bach to the present day.
Via Luce is a unsubsidized charity which lives on a combination of donations and receipts from concerts. If you are interested in supporting its work, please use the contact form to write to me.
For more information, go to the Via Luce internet site.