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Director, Joël Suhubiette |
Joël Suhubiette rapidly fell in love with choral repertoire after studying music at the Toulouse conservatory. He started out singing with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie then encountered Philippe Herreweghe and his ensembles – the Chapelle Royale and the Collegium Vocale of Ghent – with whom he then sang for about twelve years.
His meeting with this conductor shaped his life and also gave him the opportunity to work with a huge repertoire covering four centuries of vocal music. As early as 1990, for eight years, Herreweghe gave him the role of assistant within both his choirs.
In 1997, the chamber choir les éléments was born, consisting of 20 to 40 professional singers, which went on to become the Ensemble of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique Classique awards in 2006. Joël Suhubiette devotes a large part of his time and energy to exploring contemporary creations, the rich repertoire of twentieth century a capella and oratorio works.
Wanting as ever to pursue his quest to restore the early music repertoire, since 1993 Joël Suhubiette has also conducted the Ensemble Jacques Modern in Tours, made up of a choir of 16 professional singers plus an ensemble of early instruments, that specialise in the music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Although strongly attached to championing the a capella repertoire, Suhubiette also performs oratorios and cantatas with several French orchestras and instrumental ensembles (Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, Ensemble Ars Nova, l’Orchestre Baroque Les Passions, l'Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse and l'Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Café Zimmerman, l’Ensemble Baroque de Limoges).
He also conducts another type of vocal repertory, namely opera, at the Festival of Saint-Céré with the opera company Opéra Eclaté, at the Massy Opera where he conducted the French premiere of Kurt Weill’s Silbersee, and at the Dijon Opera, which has invited him since 1993 to conduct Mozart’s operas (Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro) and, in 2007, les Caprices de Marianne by Henri Sauguet. He is often invited as conductor of the Orchestre of Pau Pays de Béarn, with which he perform classical and contemporary works.
With his two choirs, Joël Suhubiette has recorded fifteen CDs with Virgin Classics, Horus, Calliope, Logia Digital, Naïve and l’Empreinte digitale.
Since 2006, he has been artistic director of the Festival of Musiques des Lumières at the Abbaye-école in Sorèze in the Tarn department.
In 2007, he was awarded the honour of a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.