About

Following the release of his CD Scorrete lagrime mie on Passacaille in 2024, trombonist Maximilien Brisson takes us on a journey to early Baroque in Italy, with a programme of great expressive richness. Featuring celebrated British tenor Charles Daniels, and harpsichordist Christophe Gauthier, Maximilien brings to life rare and striking pages by Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, and Sigismondo d’India, exploring how these composers treat musically the theme of tears. The result is an ideal repertoire to highlight the vocal virtuosity of the trombone, an instrument that, historically, has probably been associated more than any other with the human voice.

About the Artists

Charles Daniels – tenor

British tenor Charles Daniels is a well-known interpreter of Baroque music, but his narrative gifts have been praised for music from Machault to the contemporary. Born in Salisbury, he was a chorister and Choral Scholar at King’s College Cambridge, then studied under Edward Brooks at the Royal College of Music.

His extensive discography includes Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Andrew Parrott, Bach’s Matthäus-Passion with the Bach-Stiftung, Handel’s Messiah, Schütz’ Weihnachtshistorie and Monteverdi’s Vespers with the Gabrieli Consort, Wojciech Kilar’s Missa Pro Pace with the Warsaw Philharmonic, The Beggar’s Opera, much Purcell and Bach, and more intimate discs such as Senfl Tenorlied with Fretwork, Heracleitus with the Bridge Quartet, and Lambert airs with Fred Jacobs.

His concert appearances span the intimate and the grand, from a BBC Radio 3 recital with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny and touring the domestic music of J.S. Bach with the Nederlandse Bach Verenging, to BBC Promenade concerts, Luigi Nono’s Canti di Vita e Amore (Edinburgh Festival), Handel’s Messiah in Vienna with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Britten’s War Requiem (Canterbury, Salisbury) and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius (Wroclaw, Cardiff, Warsaw).

More recent projects include concerts and recording of Purcell’s Fairy Queen for the Gabrieli Consort in Paul McCreesh’s new edition, Lawes songs with Les Voix Humaines in Utrecht, a festive Schütz programme with the Toronto Consort; Handel Chandos Anthems in their original setting of the Canons Estate church, ongoing participation in the Bach-Stiftung’s complete Bach series, the Academy of Ancient Music’s radical look at Purcell’s King Arthur and quatercentenary Sweelinck celebrations in the Netherlands and the Baltic States. Upcoming projects include a one voice per part St Matthew Passion recording for Adrian Butterfield, a Japanese tour with Les Voix Humaines and the title role in Monteverdi’s Orfeo for Peter Holman.

Maximilien Brisson – trombone

An alumnus of the Université de Montréal, McGill University, the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, where he studied early music performance with Catherine Motuz and Charles Toet, Maximilien Brisson has quickly established himself as a leading specialist of historical trombones both in Europe and North America. He has performed with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Akamus, Concerto Palatino, Quicksilver Baroque, the Breathtaking Collective, il Gardellino, Collegium Vocale Gent, Les Cornets Noirs, I Gemelli, Les Traversées Baroques, l’Harmonie des Saisons and the Toronto Consort, among others. He is a member of I Fedeli, ¡Sacabuche! and Ansambl Responsorium, and a founding member of canticum trombonorum and of Le Consort laurentien, with which he was finalist at the prestigious YorkComp in 2019.

Maximilien is lecturer for Baroque Trombone at the University of the Arts Bremen. He also teaches at the MentiParti historical improvisation summer workshop in Basel, and has taught at masterclasses and workshops at the University of Toronto, the San Francisco Early Music Society and the Madison Early Music Festival. Also active as a scholar and editor, his current interests include the works of Lodovico Viadana, Andreas Oswald and František Ignác Tůma as well as organological research on historical trombones.

An accomplished leader, Maximilien made his conducting debut in 2011. In 2012, he was the music director of a 28-hour-long musical marathon and conducted a live-broadcast performance of Mozart’s Requiem. He was Artistic Director of the Concerts de la Métropole from 2013 to 2016. He conducted numerous premieres, including that of orchestral works by a collective of Canadian and American composers in Los Angeles, and has led a critically-acclaimed performance of Mahler’s Sixth symphony. He is now Artistic Director of the Viadana Collective, a new ensemble formed of major figures and rising stars of the Canadian and international early music scenes, which embarked on its debut tour and CD recording in May 2023.

Christophe Gauthier – harpsichord

Born in Montreal, Christophe Gauthier studied harpsichord at the Conservatoire de Montréal (Mireille Lagacé) and he did his Bachelors (Réjean Poirier) and Masters (Luc Beauséjour) at Université de Montréal. He also took classes with Benjamin Alard (Paris) and Jory Vinikour (Chicago).

A talented chamber musician, Christophe Gauthier has founded many ensembles such as Les Rendez-vous baroque français (Montréal), La Frontera (Mexico) and Le Consort laurentien (Basel) which was produced at the Utrecht Early Music Festival in summer 2021. He also plays organ with Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Arion orchestre baroque, I Musici de Montréal and Orchestre Métropolitain with maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He was heard in harpsichord recital at Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in autumn of 2021, and will be seen again as a soloist at Clavecin en concert in winter of 2023.

Christophe Gauthier teaches harpsichord and organ at Cégep Marie-Victorin and ear training at Cégep de Saint-Laurent. He is often invited to conduct ensembles from the harpsichord and he is choirmaster for Ensemble vocal Vivace and le Chœur de l’OPMEM. He has also conducted Dido and Eneas (Purcell), Hercules (Handel) and David et Jonathas (Charpentier). Christophe hosts a classical music programme on Radio Ville-Marie weekly.