Ensemble Amarillis

France's Ensemble Amarillis is noted for original programming and for its focus on lesser-known music of the Baroque. In performance, the group has also collaborated with artists from outside the musical realm. Ensemble Amarillis was formed in 1994 by Héloïse Gaillard, a flutist, oboist, recorder player, and Sorbonne-degreed musicologist. She remains the group's artistic director as of the early 2020s. It has no conductor, and its forces very widely according to project, ranging from small instrumental groups to an orchestra of 35 or more players, plus various singers. Ensemble Amarillis was propelled onto the crowded 1990s early music map by three major prizes: First Prize of the York Early Music Competition, First Prize of the Fédération Nationale des Associations de Parents d'Elèves des Conservatoires competition, and, in September 1997, First Prize and the Audience Prize at harpsichordist and director Gustav Leonhardt's SINFONIA competition. In 1999, Ensemble Amarillis released its debut album, Amour et Mascarade, its first in a series of albums for the Ambroisie label. Ensemble Amarillis has appeared in major French venues, including the Philharmonie de Paris, the Versailles Baroque Music Center, and the Théâter des Champs-Élysées, in Britain at the Royal Academy of Music and at various festivals, and in many countries around Europe and internationally, as far afield as Senegal, China, and various places in Latin America. It has become known for devising thematic programs incorporating vocal music, such as Jeux de dames à la Cour, Amour et mascarade, and Ferveur et extase, but the group also performs and records freestanding Baroque repertory by major composers and has performed contemporary music and jazz on occasion. In performance, Ensemble Amarillis also collaborates with theatrical, dance, and spoken-word artists. The group is notable for its substantial recording catalog. Beginning in the 2010s, it recorded for major labels, including Sony Classical (a 2016 recording of Pergolesi's Stabat mater with soprano Sonya Yoncheva and mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes), Harmonia Mundi, Naïve, and Mirare. In 2022, Ensemble Amarillis moved to the Evidence label for an album of solo cantatas by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. ~ James Manheim, Rovi