We are Ensemble Molière – a young early music ensemble based in London, focusing on French baroque music. Our namesake is the great French playwright, Molière, and we hope to capture the theatre of French baroque music in our performances and bring often-neglected works to new audiences. The repertoire is sometimes perceived as being ‘stuffy’ or inaccessible, and we want to change that!
A French Baroque My Fair Lady!
We’re planning an exciting project. We want to bring an accessible “mini opera” to life: “Pygmalion” by Jean-Philippe Rameau. It tells the same Greek legend which inspired George Bernard Shaw’s play and spawned the musical My Fair Lady.
Pygmalion falls in love with one of the statues he has made. His girlfriend Céphise tries to convince him to love her, but Pygmalion’s love triumphs and the statue comes to life!
Animation & Accessibility
We want to bring the opera to the widest possible audience. Lasting only 45 minutes short (not like those massive 3 or 4 hour Handelian operas!), we think it’s an exciting way into French baroque opera. We will use imaginative animation, with simplified surtitles for EVERYONE to understand and enjoy!
Young things
We’re a young ensemble and we are going to be working with 3 exceptional young singers & a young director, Karolina Sofulak to create a fresh interpretation of the opera
But we need your help!
We need to raise £3000 by 9th January.
We are applying to the Arts Council for grant to make this project happen but they will only fund the project if we can first of all demonstrate that the public care about our project and are investing in it. And they won’t fund it outright. So we need to raise £3000 before we make our application to the Arts Council in January. And that means we don’t have much time….
Please back our project. To thank you we’ve dreamt up some special and rather quirky rewards including…
- Christmas Card from Ensemble Molière (Early Bird special! - if you back us by 22nd December)
- a special & original Pygmalion art work (only one in the world) by the fabulous artist Kate Anderson who is the animator on this project (limited numbers)
- a private mini concert in your living room by members of Ensemble Molière
- an invitation to the dress rehearsal
Every donation counts. And please also help us by spreading the word to your friends, families, and colleagues, as well as on Facebook, Twitter and email.
THANK YOU!