Notre-Dame de Paris. To celebrate their return home, the Maîtrise promises an exceptional season

“After five difficult but rewarding years of singing outside the walls, we are happy to come home! » rejoices Henri Chalet, director and principal choirmaster of the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris. This vocal ensemble, made up of four groups depending on the age of the singers, is as old as the building where “cathedral singing” was invented in the Middle Ages.

Since the fire of 2019, the Maîtrise was housed in Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois where it continued to provide daily liturgical singing, while being invited to numerous concert venues, in France and in Europe: “Our students were thus able to maintain the level of their art and pass it on to the next generation. » Because the Masters also plays the role of a professional school.

To mark its return, accompanied by the titular organs, new creations will be added to a repertoire “which covers a thousand years of music, from Gregorian to contemporary”, specifies Henri Chalet. Thus, the young composer Lise Borel will offer in March 2025, three motets for children’s choir and cello, inspired by the prayers of Saint Francis of Assisi.

While to close, in June, the six months of reopening festivities, the organist Thierry Escaich composes a new Te Deum, which he hopes is “inspired by the biblical episode of the burning bush, because the fire, now, makes part of the history of the cathedral.