15 XAVIER PHILLIPS ∙ LAUSANNE SOLOISTS Xavier Phillips, this new album placed in your discography puts the spotlight on a very distinctive project. How did it come to be? Xavier Phillips: Three years ago I was invited to succeed Renaud Capuçon as Director of the Lausanne Soloists. I accepted it as a gift, fully aware that it would require of me an enormous amount of time and commitment. The question then arose of what I should do with this ensemble, which is not made up of professional players but of students still completing their studies at the HEMU – Haute École de Musique, in Lausanne, where I teach. I needed a programme that would step away from the well-trodden paths of the classical repertoire. The idea of the four cardinal points was suggested to me, and I embraced it with enthusiasm. The South imposed itself naturally as our starting point, with Italy; we performed Nino Rota's Concerto per archi, concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, and by Luigi Boccherini depending on the programme, but also with South America and the desire to bring to the fore a woman composer, Alicia Terzian, through her three pieces for string orchestra, as well as Astor Piazzolla, who has been part of my musical life since adolescence. I had dreamt about this for a long time! I had performed his Four Seasons in the arrangement by Leonid Desyatnikov, the best-known of all those available, with its added harpsichord and inserted quotations from Vivaldi’s work. I asked Olivier Calmel, composer and childhood friend, to create a version for cello and string orchestra.
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