Founded in 1996, the ensemble Faenza explores the music of the Ancien Régime, endeavouring to capture in it more of its spirit than its letter, in a process of reinvention rather than reconstruction. To this end, the ensemble analyses the relationship between spoken text and sung text, but also and above all the relationship that may build between an audience and performers. Indeed, the formal frame of the traditional concert is hardly suited to repertoires conceived within and for convivial circles, of which the practice has been lost, if not the trace. The challenge then is to reinvent conditions of performance that take into account both the original context of the creations and the audience for which they are performed.

The questioning has brought about interactive concert formats within which the performers connect with the audience through acting, storytelling, poetry or the pleasures of the table, relying on devices that reduce the physical distance between performers and audience. This is why Faenza brings together musicians whose flexibility allows them to move from instrument to song, from song to speech and as easily interact with the audience. Thanks to these many-talented artists as well as a continued dialogue with researchers, the ensemble is able to carry out work that gives pride of place to texts, music and practices that deserve to be rediscovered.