Mont-Saint-Michel and its Bay Music Festival - Via Aeterna

Three of the abbey's halls will be alive with a varied programme of music from the Via Aeterna festival.

In the abbey church

• 11.30am - Mass led by the Schola grégorienne Collegium Normannorum The Schola grégorienne Collegium Normannorum was founded in 2003 by Jacques Joubin, choirmaster of the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Coutances.
• 2.30pm - Émilie Rose Bry soprano, Ensemble Magnétis / Sébastien Bouveyron violin and conductor"Vivaldi and opera" Violin master at the Ospedale della Pietà, an institution dedicated to poor young girls in Venice, Vivaldi composed tirelessly for these young singers and instrumentalists, whose performances attracted a wide audience. Indeed, the violin and the voice are intimately linked in his music, as demonstrated by the vocal qualities of his instrumental works and the impressive virtuosity of his opera arias, veritable masterpieces of Baroque art.
• 4.30pm - by Mikrokosmos Loïc Pierre conductor "Le jour m'étonne" The latest in the Mikrokosmos choir's tetralogy launched in 2013 with "La Nuit Dévoilée", "Le jour m'étonne" continues to merge repertoires, with a variety of pieces that revisit great composers from all eras and all horizons, from Eric Banks to Manuel Ruiz del Corral, via Joseph Jennings, Veljo Tormis and Grede Pedersen, to delight the eyes and ears!
• 4.30pm - by Ensemble Aedes, Agnès Boissonnot-Guilbault viola da gamba, Mathieu Romano conducting "Immortal Bach" Borrowing its title from the famous choral piece Immortal Bach by Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt, this concert brings together several gems of sacred music, from Bach's motets, which dominated the world of spiritual music in Baroque Germany, through Felix Mendelssohn's a cappella motets, masterpieces of the vocal repertoire, to the composers who drew inspiration from them in the 20th and 21st centuries.
• 6.30pm - Tokyo Philharmonic Choir / Hiroyuki Mito conductorWorksby Janequin, Mendelssohn, Elgar, Barber, Ravel, Takemitsu ... "The Tokyo Philharmonic Choir is a true enchantment. Their elegance, culture and timbre are second to none. Absolute purity. Gramophone

In the monks' refectory

• 12.30 pm - by Chœur Label Diva / Pauline Court conductor Works by Purcell, Jenkins, Gjeilo and traditional Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian music... A dreamlike, contemplative journey in the company of the Label Diva choir, with an original repertoire combining traditional songs from the Nordic countries (Iceland, Finland, Latvia...) and sacred music (Purcell, Jenkins...).
• 3.30pm - by Céline Scheen soprano, La Chimera"Baroque Italy "Works by Caccini, Ferrari, Monteverdi, D'India... At the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Italy established itself as the cradle of European vocal music, inventing forms such as opera, cantata and oratorio that were destined for a prodigious future. Taking up Caccini's innovations and imbuing them with an incomparable human warmth, Claudio Monteverdi paved the way for the forerunners of bel canto such as Sigismondo d'India, Benedetto Ferrari and the great Barbara Strozzi, authors of sublime scores whose dazzling richness will be revealed to you by soprano Céline Scheen and La Chimera.

In the Scriptorium

• 1.30pm - By Canticum Novum / Emmanuel Bardon singing and conducting"Canti di gioia" Italian, Armenian and Cappadocian music around Saint Francis of Assisi Inspired by the figure of Saint Francis of Assisi, precursor of inter-religious dialogue, the intercultural collective Canticum Novum has come up with a new work highlighting music as a source of reciprocity and listening, of encounters and dialogue, based on the popular sacred traditions of Umbria, Tuscany, Cilicia and Armenia from the 13th and 14th centuries.
• 4.30pm - By Misora Lee Gregorian chant, Ensemble Magnétis / Sébastien Bouveyron violin and conductor"Sacred music from the Renaissance" Works by Victoria, Palestrina and Gabrieli The Ensemble Magnétis continues its exploration of sacred music with two masterpieces from the Renaissance period: the Mass O magnum mysterium, and the Office de la Semaine Sainte by Tomás Luis de Victoria, who was the greatest Spanish composer of his time. They are presented here in previously unpublished versions for string ensemble, alternating with Gregorian chant.