About
« The sensual and racy voice of mezzo soprano Anaïs Bertrand is attractive and leads us into history like the coryphaeus of the ancient tragedy. »
resmusica.com
Alongside with a sociology degree, Anaïs Bertrand first studied singing with the Notre-Dame-de-Paris’ Cathedral’s Choir, the nunder, the guidance of Valérie Guilloritat the Paris National Conservatory. She worked as well with Regina Werner at the Leipzig’s Hochschule. In 2018 Anaïs was awarded first prize in the Froville’s baroque singing contest.
As a delicate musician, she benefits from all types of expressions offered by vocal repertoire : ranging from Gregorian chant to contemporary music or polyphony to lyrical art.
Between 2019 & 2020, she sang solo parts along with Le Poème Harmonique (Vincent Dumestre), Ensemble Marguerite Louise (Gaétan Jarry), source of a new record project entitled O filli et filiae, Ensemble Clément Janequin (Dominique Visse) with wich she will record in 2020 an album dedicated to the songs of Josquin des Près (label Ricercar), La Grande Ecurie (Dominique Visse) and Le Concert de l’Hostel-Dieu (Franck-Emmanuel Comte).
Future plans include : Madame Couic‘s role at Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne (work of Vincent Bouchot, staged by Jeanne Desoubeaux) as well as Gretel’s part with Orchestre National d’Ile de France at the Philharmonie de Paris (an opera by Damien Lehman, staged by Emmanuel Cordoliani).
She will have the opportunity to sing a recital with Anne Le Bozec at the Festival « Musique au Pays de Pierre Loti. »
Also she will perform wit Ensemble Près de Votre Oreille (Robin Pharo) at Festival of Saintes, at Elizabethan theatre of Hardelot castle as well as many other festivals, promoting Come sorrow a CD regarding elizabethan song, (a record published in 2019 by Paraty) and the creation of a new program : Blessed Echoes.
On stage one could see her at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles as Juno (Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon) with Ensemble Marguerite Louise, the role of Andromaque in the world premiere of Iliade l’amour (Betsy Jolas), coproduced with the National Conservatory and the Philharmonie de Paris. also as Mélisande (Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande), then as l’Enfant (L’Enfant et les sortilèges of Maurice Ravel), eventually as Dido (Purcell’s Dido&Aenas) at the Ranelagh Theatre with the Maurice et les autres company (Jeanne Desoubeaux and Igor Bouin).
Other performances to mention : George Benjamin’s Upon silence with Ensemble Maja (Bianca Chillemi), Les chansons Madécasses of Maurice Ravel or otherwise Luciano Berio’ Folksongs.
Anais also performed as a soloist at the Opéra de Clermont-Ferrand, Festival « Les Vacances de Monsieur Haydn », Festival « Musiciennes à Ouessant », festival of « IRCAM : manifeste » or the « Journées Ravel ».
Further more she takes an active part in Ensemble Aedes (Mathieu Romano) endeavouring to the 20th century a capella vocal repertoire ; performs also with the Ensemble vocal de Notre-Dame de Paris (Sylvain Dieudonné) with which she recorded Saint Louis (Label Notre-Dame de Paris).
Among Anaïs past involvements it’s worth mentioning her collaborations with Ensemble Pygmalion (Raphaël Pichon), Ensemble Les Surprises (Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas), Ensemble Correspondances (Sébastien Daucé), Ensemble La Tempête (Simon-Pierre Bestion de Camboulas) or Le Concert Spirituel (Hervé Niquet).
On both vocal repertoire evaluation and creation, Anaïs is highly committed in the music of our time too. She’s a founding member of Ensemble Lunaris, created in 2009 and focused on three voices and a viola da gamba with she co-creates innovatives concerts, combining ancient repertoire and original premieres (works from Raphaël Mas and Fabien Touchard).
In this respect Ensemble Lunaris recorded Exode(s) in 2013. Eventually she was lucky enough to sing under the baton of Bruno Mantovani, to work with composers such as Philippe Hersant, Graciane Finzi, Caroline Marçot, George Benjamin or in duo with the pianist/composer Fabien Touchard.
