Founded in 2010, Ensemble La Main Harmonique is committed to the performance of songs, motets and madrigals from the Renaissance. The aim of its founder, Frédéric Bétous, artistic director and countertenor, is to question the place of polyphony through transversal programmes mixing early music and contemporary creations. La Main Harmonique seeks to restore and perform recovered scores and discover new repertoires.
Since 2014, composers Alexandros Markeas, Caroline Marçot and Bastien David have been invited to write for the ensemble. Recent projects have involved artists from a variety of backgrounds such as drummer and composer Anne Pacéo, jazz composer and pianist Thomas Enhco, and arranger Bruno Fontaine.
La Main Harmonique varies in size from programme to programme, but the emphasis is on a capella. Leaving no stone unturned in its quest for great purity of sound, the ensemble is welcomed in the most beautiful venues in Europe to perform about twenty times a year.
Acclaimed since the release of its first album “Ockeghem & Compère” in 2010, La Main Harmonique is constantly expanding its discography: “Clemens deus Artifex” in 2011, “L’aura mia Sacra” in 2013, “Sacrae Cantiones” by Gesualdo in 2015, the motets of Claudio Monteverdi in 2018, and in the autumn of 2021, an album of late Italian Renaissance motets will be released, echoing a contemporary piece, commissioned by the Radio France Occitanie Montpellier Festival for La Main Harmonique by composer Bastien David.
For several years, the ensemble has been involved in artistic and cultural education in several music schools, primary schools and colleges in connection with their artistic projects. In residence at La Romieu, La Main Harmonique also has a considerable presence in the Gers region through the summer festival Musique en Chemin and the work it has been doing for the past ten years with the amateur choir Ambrosià.
We have been supporting La Main Harmonique since 2021.