In 2003, violinist Richard Schmoucler took up the challenge of creating an ensemble halfway between classical academism and traditional Eastern European music. He joined forces with five musician friends from the Paris, National de France and Opéra de Paris orchestras, a pianist, a cymbalist and arranger Cyrille Lehn to form the Sirba Octet.

• Richard Schmoucler, violin & artistic director
• Laurent Manaud-Pallas, violin
• Grégoire Vecchioni, viola
• Claude Giron, cello
• Stanislas Kuchinski, double bass
• Philippe Berrod, clarinet
• Christophe Henry, piano
• Iurie Morar, cymbalum
• Cyrille Lehn, arranger

This singular ensemble, which offers an original interpretation of the klezmer, Yiddish and Gypsy repertoire, released its first album, A Yiddishe Mame, on the Naïve Classic label in 2005. This intimate acoustic programme of Eastern European melodies is an anthology of tunes with Slavic and Yiddish accents, reminiscent of the festive, family atmosphere of its founder Richard Schmoucler. It is through this history, which has shaped his culture and his sensibility, that he then conceives his different programmes and chooses to revive this music in the present of the classical musician he is today.

A NEW GENRE: CLASSIC WORLD!

While virtuosity and emotion are inevitably to be found in the tunes marked by the wanderings of these peoples, it is the colour, richness and inventiveness of the Sirba Octet's musical rewriting that make this ensemble unique. Made up of eight exceptional musicians with dazzlingly sensitive interpretations, the Sirba Octet excels outside the traditional circuits, skilfully bringing genres together and succeeding in the challenge of creating musical programmes that combine chamber music, symphonic ensembles and traditional instruments. A musical universe that the Sirba Octet defines as a new genre, that of the ‘ Classic World ’.

SIRBA OCTET: SOMETHING OF AN ART OF CELEBRATION

Immersion in the popular music of Eastern Europe has been the common denominator of the ensemble's programmes since 2003. Tantz!, which means dance in Yiddish, will serve as a pretext for exploring the traditional sounds of klezmer and gypsy dances from Romania, Moldavia, Russia and Hungary. The album Tantz ! released in 2015 by la Dolce Volta was reissued by the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2017. With the same label, the Sirba Octet released the album Sirba Orchestra! in 2018, recorded with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège conducted by Christian Arming and Nicolas Kedroff on balalaika. A three-way dialogue in the heart of Russian classics, blending with the rich mix of traditional Romanian, Yiddish, Moldavian and Gypsy music. Later, the Sirba Octet chose to offer a version without orchestra, but with an energy as irresistible as ever, giving the ensemble a chance to reunite with Alexei Birioukov's balalaika.

THE SIRBA OCTET ON TOUR

The Sirba Octet performs its programmes as an octet or with a symphony orchestra (A Yiddishe Mame, Tantz !, Sirba Orchestra! and Sirbalalaïka) in prestigious venues and festivals in France and abroad: Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Théâtre de la Ville, Shanghai Concert Hall, Hyogo Performing Arts Center (Japan) Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Ekaterinburg Philharmonic (Russia), Folle Journée de Nantes and Japan, Festival de Pâques, Martha Argerich Festival in Hamburg, Flâneries Musicales de Reims, Festival International de Piano de la Roque d'Anthéron, Festival de l'Abbaye de Sylvanès, scènes nationales de Perpignan, de Brest, de la Rochelle... or in long series at the Théâtre Mogador, the Européen, La Cigale, the Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris... The Sirba Octet also performs with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège (Belgium), the Tonküstler Orchester (Austria), the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra (Japan), the Tatarstan Orchestra (Russia), the WDR Funkhausorchester Cologne and the Trier Philharmonic Orchestra (Germany), l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and l'Orchestre Symphonique Bienne Soleure (Switzerland), l'Orchestre National de Lille, l'Orchestre Pau/Pays de Béarn, l'Orchestre de Cannes, l'Orchestre Lamoureux, l'Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, l'Orchestre de Bretagne, l'Orchestre Victor Hugo France Comté... They have performed under the baton of Christian Arming, Yutaka Sado, Alexander Sladkosvsky, Enrico Delamboye, Kaspar Zehnder, Alexandre Bloch, Fayçal Karoui, Benjamin Levy, Rudolf Piehlmayer, Jean-François Verdier, John Axelrod...

The Sirba Octet's albums have been acclaimed by the press and media (Choc Classica, Prix de l'Association Européenne pour la Culture Juive, etc.) and the ensemble has been invited to appear on television programmes such as Musiques en fête live from the Chorégies d'Orange, Fauteuils d'Orchestre, Victoires de la Musique Classique, Le plus grand cabaret du monde , etc. A report for France 3 was also devoted to them, Une journée avec le Sirba Octet et Isabelle Georges, presented by Alain Duault.

INVALUABLE ARTISTIC COLLABORATIONS AND HYBRID PROJECTS

The Sirba Octet's programmes are regularly enriched by well-known or more original works, thanks to the talent of the indissociable arranger Cyrille Lehn. To bring together traditional music from Eastern Europe and the repertoires of musical comedy and popular music, the Sirba Octet has entered into artistic collaborations with singer Isabelle Georges for two programmes, ‘ Du Shtetl à New York’ and ‘ Yiddish Rhapsody’ , both of which were released in 2008 and 2009 by Naïve Classic, and with ‘Catherine Lara au cœur de l'âme Yiddish’ for a previously unreleased album released by Sony Music in 2012.

TSUZAMEN THE SIRBA OCTET'S NEW ALBUM & PROGRAMME

Tsuzamen, the ensemble's 7th album, released in 2023, inaugurates the Sirba Records collection created for the ensemble's 20th anniversary.

Tsuzamen: Armenians, Jews, Roma: three peoples in exile, whose paths criss-cross Europe. They carry with them their legends and their cosmogony, their culture and their language, their music and their songs.

From the outset, Tsuzamen was designed to be performed in large format, with the participation of a children's or adult choir alongside the ensemble's eight musicians. For the premiere of this new programme at the Philharmonie de Paris, the ensemble teamed up with the children's choir of the Orchestre de Paris. The concert was recorded by France Télévisions and broadcast at prime time in January 2024. The Sirba Octet is invited to perform in France and abroad with the Tsuzamen programme as an octet or with children's or adult choirs.