Ensemble Aedes

Founded by Mathieu Romano in 2005, Aedes is the fruit of a collective adventure, its members motivated by the same passion for choral music to devote themselves to its service by their fidelity to the Ensemble.  

The Ensemble’s explores music from the Baroque period via unaccompanied 20th and 21st century music right up to contemporary works. It is well known for the originality of its staged or semi-staged programmes, for its collaborations with artists from other backgrounds (dance, drama and the visual arts) and for the jaunts it takes into other musical genres such as French chanson and flamenco. For the 2024-2025 season, Aedes invites martial artist and Nō actor Master Masato Matsuura to join them in creating a new programme which brings together two different thousand year-old traditions through singing, drama, arms and dance.

The Ensemble’s powerful stage presence has earned it invitations to perform in France’s most distinguished opera houses : it has performed at the Philharmonie de Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Opéra Comique, the Paris Opera, the Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Palais de Chaillot. Festival engagements include Aix-en-Provence, La Chaise-Dieu, Besançon, Radio France Montpellier, and the Rencontres Musicales de Vézelay. Abroad, it has been invited to perform at the Vienna Konzerthaus, in Amsterdam, Kracow and Grenada’s International Music and Dance Festival.

At the core of the Ensemble Aedes’ repertoire are 20th works and premieres of contemporary music. Its rich and varied recordings of sacred and secular a cappella music from this period have won praise from listeners and critics alike.

Its performances of vocal and instrumental masterpieces see the Ensemble working with other distinguished groups such as Les Siècles, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and the Latvian Radio Choir.

Faithfully committed to the generous spirit at the heart of this adventure, Mathieu Romano’s singers devote themselves to sharing choral music everywhere, with everybody. Every year the Ensemble organises a rich season of outreach projects.

From the 2022-2023 season onwards, the Ensemble Aedes will be working at  Saint Riquier Abbey in the Hauts-de-France region setting up an new Pôle Régional d’Art Vocal in partnership with the Somme département.