Gambist
Winner of the 2025 Victoires de la Musique Classique awards
From her childhood as a young actress, Lucile Boulanger has retained a taste and pleasure for shaping speech and phrasing emotions. Lucile’s early training on the viola da gamba accentuates this very accuracy: supported by her teachers (Ariane Maurette, Christine Plubeau, Jérôme Hantai, Christophe Coin), Lucile immerses herself in the joyful asceticism required by the viol. Her rigorous standards opened the doors to the CNSM in Paris, from which she graduated in 2009 with the highest honors, and was awarded several international prizes (Bach-Abel Competition in Köthen, Società Umanitaria in Milan, Musica Antiqua in Brugge).
Honing her skills on different stones, Lucile Boulanger finds as much pleasure in blending the voice of her viol with consort polyphony (L’Achéron, Ricercar Consort, Musicall Humors) and operatic continuo (Pygmalion, Correspondances, Les Talens Lyriques, etc.), as she does in the rigorous exercise of recital in France and abroad. Sometimes accompanying, sometimes accompanied, her collaborations with the most prominent performers nourish her imagination and curiosity (Philippe Pierlot, Christophe Rousset, Justin Taylor, Claire Lefilliatre, Lucile Richardot, François Lazarevitch, Alexis Kossenko, etc.).
His recordings (Bach Sonatas or C.P.E. Bach-Graun-Hesse with Arnaud de Pasquale) have received critical acclaim and numerous awards (Diapason, fffff, Choc de Classica, Coup de Coeur Charles Cros). His latest recording, devoted to Forqueray and transcriptions of Italian violin sonatas, has prompted critics to remark that “sometimes it’s the energy that shakes you, sometimes the caress that makes you shiver, sometimes the naked emotion that moves you, but everywhere it’s the same accuracy, the same density”. BBC Music Magazine calls this latest album “irresistible”, and compares her freedom of play to that of Jacqueline du Pré.
Going against the grain of current early music practice, Lucile Boulanger refuses to see the viol as the vessel of a bygone aesthetic tradition. As a result, her current projects aim to expand and emancipate the contemporary viol repertoire, by commissioning works and giving pride of place in her programs to those that already exist (notably by Hersant). A number of compositions have already been dedicated to her.
