Les Épopées au Cœur de l'Yonne

Les Épopées au Cœur de l'Yonne: A Traveling Festival Born from Baroque Passion

Created in August 2021 on the initiative of soprano Claire Lefilliâtre and conductor and harpsichordist Stéphane Fuget, founder of the ensemble Les Épopées, the festival Les Épopées au Cœur de l'Yonne immediately established itself as one of the most original events for early music in the region. By anchoring their artistic adventure in the north of Yonne — a territory where the ensemble is based in Sens — the two artists wanted to offer their Burgundian neighbors the interpretive excellence they bring to the greatest European stages, from the Paris Philharmonie to the Vienna Konzerthaus.

The concept is as simple as it is ambitious: for about ten days each August, the festival takes over a multitude of heritage sites scattered between Sénonais and Jovinien. Every evening, in a different village, church, castle, or market hall, a concert reveals the beauty of a often overlooked region while resonating with the masterpieces of the baroque repertoire and early music in the settings most natural to them.

A Summer Academy at the Heart of the Project

What fundamentally distinguishes Les Épopées au Cœur de l'Yonne from other early music festivals is its connection to a summer academy for early music. Each year, about twenty selected young musicians — singers, violinists, harpsichordists, lutenists — join the Yonne region for several weeks of intensive immersion with the professional musicians of the ensemble.

This pedagogy of companionship, dear to Stéphane Fuget and Claire Lefilliâtre, allows for an authentic exchange between experienced performers engaged in an international career and young talents in training, often from the early music departments of the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris (CNSM). The festival thus offers trainees a unique window into the professional world, with joint rehearsals, master-classes, and — a highly anticipated highlight — a public concert by the trainees given at the end of the academy, usually at the Saint-Pierre church in Saint-Julien-du-Sault.

Exceptional Venues between Sénonais and Jovinien

The itinerant nature is at the very heart of the festival's identity. From one edition to the next, concerts move through a unique musical geography:

• Saint-Julien-du-Sault (89330) — the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre, a Gothic jewel overlooking the Yonne, regularly hosts chamber recitals and trainee concerts
• Villeneuve-sur-Yonne — the Espace Pincemin theater, a hall with warm acoustics, hosts the most staged productions
• Sens — the medieval Halles of the capital of Sénonais host the Bal baroque, a grand festive finale open to all
• Château de Cudot — open-air concerts in the park of this medieval castle in Sénonais
• Joigny — the Debussy hall for baroque opera productions
• Cézy, Gron, Rosoy, Rousson, Précy-sur-Vrin — villages that open their doors for an evening to the magic of early music

The Artistic Signature of Les Épopées

The ensemble Les Épopées, founded in 2018, has distinguished itself in a few years by a resolutely innovative approach to baroque music. Stéphane Fuget, winner of the 2001 Bruges International Harpsichord Competition and former chorus master at the Opéra national de Paris, has forged an interpretive vision based on two pillars: ornamentation — treating the baroque score as a surface to be enriched with unwritten sonic gestures, similar to the decorative arts of the same period — and declamation — allowing singers to inflect melodic lines with micro-intervals and nuances of affect, prioritizing the intelligence of the text.

Claire Lefilliâtre, artistic director of the festival, is recognized as one of the great specialists of 17th-century French and Italian singing. Trained in baroque declamation by Eugène Green and Benjamin Lazar, she has embodied major roles in operas by Lully (Hermione in Cadmus et Hermione), Cavalli (Egisto), Handel (Riccardo Primo), and Monteverdi (L'Orfeo). Her artistic presence gives the festival a demanding yet profoundly human and accessible guiding principle.

A Diverse Program

From one edition to the next, the festival unfolds a remarkably varied panorama of the ancient repertoire: baroque operas by Cesti or Handel, sacred motets, 17th-century Italian sonatas for violin and organ, French and Dutch court songs, Mozart's serenade played by winds, contemporary chamber music — the programming does not hesitate to mix eras and registers, from the solemnity of a sacred concert to the conviviality of an intimate recital or the exuberance of a baroque ball. This programmatic diversity is a strong signature of the festival, which refuses to confine early music to a single aesthetic register.

A Supported and Recognized Festival

Since its inception, Les Épopées au Cœur de l'Yonne has benefited from the support of the DRAC Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, the Department of Yonne, the Centre national de la musique (CNM), as well as private patrons including the Orange Foundation and the Charot Society. The festival has quickly found its audience, drawing between 100 and 400 spectators each evening depending on the venue, and contributing to the cultural attractiveness of a rural territory too often ignored by national cultural circuits.

In six editions, the festival has established itself as a model of intelligent traveling festival, combining international-level artistic excellence, pedagogical transmission, and authentic territorial rooting — a musical epic that has yet to finish making the stones of Yonne resonate.