The Ensemble Contrechamps

Contrechamps is an ensemble of soloists specialized in creating, developing and disseminating instrumental music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Ensemble is dedicated to highlighting the diversity of aesthetics and formats making up the contemporary and experimental scene. For over 40 years the Ensemble Contrechamps has been working hand in hand with a large number of composers, conductors and artists – Rebecca Saunders, Pierre Boulez, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Christine Sun Kim, Michael Jarrell, Jacques Demierre, Olga Kokcharova, Sofia Jernberg, Vimbayi Kaziboni or Heinz Holliger, among others. The Ensemble also showcases the multiple skills and unique talents of its member musicians.

Contrechamps strives to develop fresh formats such as installation-performances, radiophonic concerts, research laboratories or collaborative processes. The Ensemble is a hybrid, both orchestra and collective, which enables it to adapt to a variety of artistic constraints and to the proposals of the artists it works with. Within this context, Contrechamp’s partnership with the Geneva Haute école de musique is meaningful inasmuch as it allows its members to remain in touch with the freshest ideas, as well as impart their expertise to coming generations.

Contrechamps is renowned for its accomplishments and is a regular guest on international stages and at prominent festivals such as the Ircam, Paris Festival d’Automne, the Salzburger Festspiele, MaerzMusik in Berlin, the Lucerne Festival, the Venice Biennale or the London ICA.

The Ensemble’s many partners in Geneva include La Bâtie, Archipel, the Grand Théâtre, the Ensemble Vide, the OCG, the Théâtre Am Stram Gram, the ADC,the cave12 and the St. Pierre Cathedral. Contrechamps has performed on a variety of stages throughout Switzerland like the Gare du Nord in Basel, Schauspielhaus in Zurich or Plateforme 10 in Lausanne, to name just a handful.

A colorful outreach program and exciting educational activities involving schools and museums allow our musicians to impart their passion to a public of all ages and from all walks of life, and to enrich and fortify the local cultural fabric.Contrechamps Editions publish significant books on contemporary music and organize Musique en dialogue, a series of conferences under the direction of Philippe Albèra.

The Ensemble has made over twenty recordings and, since last season, has been offering a new collection of vinyls on its own Contrechamps label in collaboration with Speckled-Toshe.