At the Folle Journe de Nantes 2026, the Ellipsos Quartet opens the festival
At La Folle jour, they are considered the regionals of the stage. Because even if they come from the four corners of France, it was in Nantes that they formed their quartet twenty-two years ago. These happy forty-year-olds met when they were only around fifteen years old, during summer courses, then on the benches of the Cergy conservatory (Val-d’Oise).
For everyone, the saxophone had become obvious. This recent instrument (invented in the middle of the 19th century), from the woodwind family (it is played with a mouthpiece and a reed, and not a mouthpiece, like the brass), seduced them with its tone, its flexibility and its personality. “When I was very young, I was fascinated by its dazzling color and its shape,” confides Paul-Fathi Lacombe, who plays the soprano sax in the quartet, the highest, an instrument certainly golden, but straight like a clarinet. With Julien Bréchet (alto), Sylvain Jarry (tenor) and Nicolas Herrouët (baritone, lowest), the musical partnership was established and led to the creation of Ellipsos in 2004.
The ensemble quickly established itself on the national and then international scene. With a constantly reinvented repertoire of classical, baroque or contemporary works adapted for their instruments, from Bach to Bernstein, the quartet has performed more than a thousand concerts in twenty countries.
Their tenth album, released in 2025, is entitled A Dream for Artemis. It offers a concerto for saxophone quartet, signed Fabien Waksman and created with the Victor-Hugo orchestra under the direction of Jean-François Verdier, which traces the space epic from 1957 to the present day. An extract from this recording, Lunar fantasy, will fly to the Moon by 2028, aboard a capsule of the Artemis III mission, “like a sample of human culture intended for possible extraterrestrial civilizations…” enthuses Paul-Fathi Lacombe.
A live on the tram
For his thirteenth participation in La Folle Journee, Nicolas Herrouët will conduct the opening concert of the 2026 edition entitled “Saxophasis”. “Echoing the theme of the year, Rivers, with 100 saxophonists from the conservatories of Pays de la Loire and elsewhere, we will sail musically on the Niger, the Mississippi and the Danube,” explains Nicolas Herrouët.
We will also play in the Nantes tramway, for the benefit of charitable works. » Then, they will perform in France, with a stopover that is close to their hearts: the Celles-sur-Belle Breath Festival (Deux-Sèvres), where they train young saxophonists every summer. Then it will be Japan, Colombia and Poland. A journey that feels like a small step, compared to the big leap that their music will soon take towards the Moon.
