L’Instant Donné is an instrumental ensemble devoted to the interpretation of contemporary chamber music. Functioning in a collegial manner, each member participating in artistic as well as everyday decisions, the ensemble has come to embrace a way of thinking as well as a working style that favours chamber music projects without a conductor: for the ensemble, a feeling of complicity between musicians is one of the key elements of interpretation.

L’Instant Donné is particularly attentive to details of staging: changes in lighting, like movements on the set, are all thought out to serve an underlying theatrical design and musical purpose. Performance is thus transparent; unburdened, the music emerges and speaks for itself. Performance also gives the ensemble, then playing the role of musical passeur, the opportunity to create intimate links between an audience and a particular choice of works. Nothing revolutionary – only simple notions (however difficult to describe!) indispensable for bringing to life what Walter Benjamin called “the aura of works”.

The ensemble’s repertoire encompasses music from the end of the 19th century to the present, with occasional visits to earlier works. It focuses mainly however on composers with whom it works closely. Thus, following on a period of concentrated work, a series of concerts featuring a single musical personality (André Boucourechliev, Gérard Pesson, Frédéric Pattar, Beat Furrer, Johannes Schöllhorn, Stefano Gervasoni, Heinz Holliger and others). At the same time, throughout the season, members of the ensemble propose a variety of concerts in small formations.

L’Instant Donné has its own rehearsal premises in La Villa mais d’Ici in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), its home base for work and exchange. La Villa mais d’Ici, formerly a wood and coal depot, now serves as a permanent residence for groups working in the arts (theatre, photo/video, scenography and music).

(Translation: Judith Andreyev)