ECHO Rising Stars: Axelle Fanyo and Kunal Lahiry
Hear one, choose one: Axelle Fanyo invites the audience to curate the perfect programme, from enchanting French music to American song cycles that set your imagination free.
Composers from France and America go head-to-head to win the audience’s affections. The strength of the applause dictates what comes next – will it be music from 20th-century America by Aaron Copland, Edward MacDowell, Florence Price and William Bolcom, or a selection of delightful French songs by André Caplet, Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc?
Praised by Renée Fleming for her ‘star quality’, Axelle Fanyo is making her mark on both the opera world and in concert halls as a recitalist. With multiple accolades under her belt including the 2021 Nadia and Lili Boulanger Competition grand prize and the prestigious Kaleidoscope prize, Fanyo is without a doubt an artist on the rise. Tonight she shows us why, as she’s joined by pianist Kunal Lahiry in an audience-led programme featuring new ECHO commission, Entre les miroirs from Greek composer Sofia Avramidou.
The inspiration for Entre les miroirs came from a documentary made in 2008, telling the story of a meeting that never took place: that of the Portuguese poet Pessoa and the Greek poet Cavafy, 'the night Fernando Pessoa met Constantine Cavafy'. Entre les miroirs is a fusion of Cavafy's 'La ville' and Pessoa's 'Lisboa com suas casas' (written under the name Álvaro de Campos); two poems evoking the devouring energy of an imaginary city that engulfs our own desires for evolution, desires absorbed by our own contemplative inertia. These two poems, like two monolithic mirrors placed one opposite the other, create an infinite horizontality through their reflections.
The song evolves within this initiatory path, using the sonority of the body, a reflection of Cavafy, and the voice, a reflection of Pessoa, to materialize a verticality from the earth, our roots, to the sky, our spirituality. Entre les miroirs offers an introspection of a humanity prey to the voracity of immortal metropolises.
Details
Programme
Programme to include:
Arnold Schoenberg Vier Lieder, Op. 2
Aaron Copland 'Nature, the gentlest mother' from 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson -
André Caplet 'Le Corbeau et le Renard' from Trois fables de Jean de la Fontaine:
Francis Poulenc from Banalités Hôtel
William Bolcom 'Toothbrush Time' from Cabaret Songs
Sofia Avramidou Entre les Miroirs
And more, as chosen by the audience during the performance:
If Copland prefered by the audience, go to Option 1; if Caplet, go to Option 2 (according to applauses)
Option 1:
Aaron Copland 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson
There Came a wind like a bugle
Why do they shut me out of Heaven?
The world feels Dusty
Heart, we will forget him
(piano solo) Edward MacDowell exc. From New England Idyls op. 62 III - Midwinter
Dear March, come in!
Sleep is supposed to be
When they come back
I felt a funeral in my brain
(piano solo) Edward MacDowell exc. New England Idyls op. 62 – IV Sweet With Lavender
I’ve heard an organ talk sometimes
Going to Heaven
The Chariot
Option 2:
André Caplet Trois fables de Jean dela Fontaine
La Cigale et la Fourmi
Le Loup et L’Agneau
Maurice Ravel Les Histoires Naturelles
Le Paon
Le Grillon
Le Cygne
Le Martin Pêcheur
La Pintade
Sofia Avramidou commission piece
Francis Poulenc from Banalités Hôtel
William Bolcom from Cabaret Songs Toothbrush Time
If Poulenc prefered by the audience, go to Option 1; if Bolcom, go to Option 2 (according to applauses)
Option 1:
Francis Poulenc Deux Poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire
Montparnasse
Hyde Park
Francis Poulenc
Les Chemins de l’amour
La Dame de Monte-Carlo
Option 2:
Negro Spiritual Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Florence Beatrice Price Song to the Dark Virgin
Willam Bolcom Cabaret Songs
Song of Black Max
Amor
George
Performers
Axelle Fanyo soprano
Kunal Lahiry piano
Artist biographies
Grand Prize winner of the Nadia and Lili Boulanger Competition 2021 with pianist Adriano Spampanato, Axelle Fanyo is an inquisitive and eclectic artist who thrives in a multitude of repertoires, ranging from Baroque to contemporary music.
In September, she will make her Philharmonie de Paris debut in La Damoiselle Élue by Debussy, singing the role of La Damoiselle with the world famous conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Orchestre de Paris. She will come back to this Hall throughout the season, first in November with a chamber music recital with pianist Kunal Lahiry and a quatuor of musicians from the Orchestre de Paris, then in April with a staged production on Da Ponte’s life with arias from Mozart, Salieri and Martin y Soler with Opera Fuoco’s company. She will also be the Baroness in the staged production Les Aventures du Baron de Münchhausen, with the famous early music orchestra Le Concert Spirituel and his French conductor Hervé Niquet, on tour in several Theaters and Opera Houses from March to May 2023.
In Opera, she sang Elizabeth in Tannhaüer by Wagner, Vitellia in La Clémence de Titus by Mozart,Eleonora in La Force du Destin by Verdi, Leonora in Prima La Musica et Poi la Parole by Salieri, or else Leïla in I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky by John Adams. Last season she sang the roles of Flore and a Moorish woman in the comedy-ballet Le Malade Imaginaire by Molière and Charpentier with Le Concert Spirituel and Hervé Niquet on a French tour. She also sang, with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset, the role of Pulcheria in Le Amazzoni nell'isole fortunate by Pallavicino, in Postdam and at Beaune Festival.
Axelle Fanyo is a complete artist for whom the art of recital is as important as opera in her career. A member of Renée Fleming's Song Studio at Carnegie Hall in 2019, she won the same year the Kaleidoscope Competition in Los Angeles, as well as two prizes at the Concours-Récital of the Classica festival in Montreal. She has given numerous recitals in France and abroad. She has recently performed at La Seine Musicale, at the Auditorium of the Musée d'Orsay, at the Phillips Collection in Washington and at the Wigmore Hall in London.
As a member of the Orsay-Royaumont Academy 20/21, in duet with Adriano Spampanato, she has benefited from the advice of lied and melody duos of masters such as Véronique Gens/Susan Manoff, Stéphanie d'Oustrac/Pascal Jourdan, or Christophe Prégardien/Julius Drake.
Her first solo recordings with Deutsche Grammophon will be out this season as part of their Rising Star program: three singles and one filmed live concert. Last season, Axelle Fanyo had two CD recordings released: the first one with the Palazzetto Bru Zane (Centre de musique Française Romantique) in a programme around La Princesse Jaune by Saint-Saens, and Les mélodies persanes by the same composer, with the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse conducted by Leo Hussain, thanks to the Orsay-Royaumont Academy, for which she recorded several Duparc melodies with the B Records label.
Indian-American pianist Kunal Lahiry is a current BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the 2021 Carl Bechstein Foundation scholarship. Recent performance highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, Pierre Boulez Saal, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Room, Musée d’Orsay, Ludwigsburg Festival, Life Victoria de Los Angeles Festival, and at the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute. He has been broadcasted on BBC Radio 3, Icelandic National Public Radio RÁS1, Austrian Radio Ö1, and RBB Kultur, and was featured on ARTE’s ‘Hope@Home’ and ‘Europe@Home’ series hosted by violinist Daniel Hope. This season includes appearances at Stoller Hall, Bristol St. George’s, Aldeburgh Festival, Opera Holland Park, Cheltenham Music Festival, Harpa Concert Hall, Schubertíada Comillas, Hugo Wolf Academy, Heidelberg Neulied Festival, Philharmonie de Paris.
Kunal has commissioned and premiered works by Nico Muhly, Errollyn Wallen, Nahre Sol, Héloïse Werner, Pablo Campos, Molly Joyce, Viktor Orri Árnason, Guðmundur Emilsson, Zachary Radler, Zubaida Azezi, and Edo Frenkel. He received grants from the Musikfonds and the Center for Musical Excellence to finance and co-produce an interdisciplinary video project called Homescapes with Icelandic soprano and visual artist Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, and created a music video with Boomtown Media Productions exploring queerness in classical music through the support of the Liedzentrum Heidelberg. He frequently collaborates with pop singer Lie Ning in Berlin and they performed together at the 2020 Reeperbahn in Hamburg.
Kunal has been invited to participate in several young artist programmes for pianists specializing in art song. In 2018, he was selected for the inaugural Royaumont-Orsay Academy, culminating in a live album recording released by B Records. He also joined Carnegie Hall’s first Song Studio, mentored by Renée Fleming, was invited by Thomas Hampson to participate in the Heidelberg Lied Academy, and received the Sam Hutchings prize at Malcolm Martineau’s Oxenfoord International Summer School.
Originally from Gainesville, Georgia, Kunal was a Schulich Scholar at McGill University and graduated with distinction in song interpretation from the Hochschule for Müsik Hanns Eisler. He is an Equilibrium Young Artist, Samling Artist, Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Artist, and Britten Pears Young Artist. Kunal is currently based in Berlin.
