TEXTUR 2026 - Journey into the Visual World of Guillaume de Machaut

Description

This journey into the visual world of Guillaume de Machaut invites the audience to an immersive experience where music, words, and images are closely intertwined. Live music engages in a dialogue with the digitally animated images by François Demerliac, based on the illuminations of Machaut manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, a partner of this project. More than a hundred miniatures, painted on parchment over six hundred years ago, are revitalized using sophisticated digital techniques and embedded into a three-dimensional space traversed by a virtual 'camera'. Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) is a key figure in European music history, the last great poet-composer of the Trouvère tradition, and a central figure in the development of Ars Nova, the new polyphony of the 14th century. Machaut himself ensured the transmission of his work as a unified corpus, leaving a unique testament to medieval musical culture. The project focuses on two manuscripts of extraordinary iconographic richness: Manuscript 1586, the oldest illustrated Machaut manuscript, likely created with the direct involvement of the author, and Manuscript 1584. Obsidienne was founded in 1997 and is now one of the leading ensembles for the interpretation of medieval music. Its work is characterized by the finesse of vocal and instrumental phrasing, careful engagement with sources, and a lively approach to historical performance practice that combines interpretation and improvisation. The vocal-instrumental ensemble includes Florence Jacquemart (vocals, flutes, bagpipes), Hélène Moreau (vocals, psaltery, percussion), Camille Bonnardot (vocals, citole, guitern, zink), and Emmanuel Bonnardot (vocals, vielle, rebec, crwth, hurdy-gurdy). Since 2009, based in Sens (Burgundy), Obsidienne has developed the research project “La chanson du Moyen Âge à nos jours” (“The song from the Middle Ages to today”), expanding its repertoire and deliberately linking music with poetry, theater, dance, and visual arts. In addition to an intensive national and international concert schedule, Obsidienne is involved in numerous outreach projects for people of all ages and experience levels. Since 2019, the ensemble has also organized La Reverdie, a traveling spring festival in rural areas. EarlyBird promotion valid until September 20, 2026 Participating artists: Ensemble Obsidienne