Lucile Boulanger began her first viola da gamba lessons at the age of five with Christine Plubeau, going on to study with Ariane Maurette, Jérôme Hantaï, and finally Christophe Coin at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMD). She has won many prizes at prestigious international competitions, including the Bach-Abel Competition in Köthen, the Concorso of the Società Umanitaria of Milan, and the Musica Antiqua Competition in Bruges. Greatly in demand as a chamber music artist, she has played and recorded with Philippe Pierlot and the Ricercar Consort, also with François Lazarevitch, Justin Taylor, Pierre Gallon, the Ensemble l’Achéron and many others; she also regularly appears with larger groups such as Pygmalion directed by Raphaël Pichon. She appears frequently as a recitalist, both in France and elsewhere. Her albums on the Alpha label partnered by keyboard player Arnaud de Pasquale, of Sonatas by Bach (2012) and works by Graun and C.P.E. Bach (2015), have been widely acclaimed.
In 2018 she released a solo recording (on Harmonia Mundi) devoted to Forqueray and his love of the Italian violin sonata. BBC Music Magazine judged this disc ‘irresistible’, comparing its artistic freedom to that of Jacqueline du Pré, and French reviewers were no less laudatory: ‘by turns one marvels at its sheer energy, shivers at its caressing phrasing, reels at its naked emotion – but throughout there is the same accuracy and consistency.’ Her album of solo viol music by Bach and Abel, released in 2022, received multiple accolades (including a ffff from Télérama, a Diapason d’or of the Year, and a ‘Discos Excepcionales' rating from Scherzo) and enjoyed huge success with the listening public. 2022 also saw the birth of the staged spectacle Phénix, the fruit of her collaboration with hip-hop choreographer Mourad Merzouki.
In 2023 she was the first viol player to be nominated in the Instrumental Soloist category at the Victoires de la Musique. Refusing to restrict the viola da gamba to being merely the repository of a bygone aesthetic tradition, her programmes are aimed at expanding and emancipating her instrument’s repertoire, not just through transcriptions, but by commissioning contemporary works.
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