French cellist Raphaël Merlin, member of the Quatuor Ebène, will be the next artistic and musical director of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra from the 2023-2024 season. Appointed for a three-year term, he will succeed Dutch chef Arie van Beek, who has been in place since 2011.
Versatile artist, the French Raphaël Merlin, 40, arrives at a pivotal moment for the orchestra, in several respects. Arie van Beek, the previous artistic director spent ten years at the head of the Geneva formation and this figure is not easy to replace. To the point that the current season is like an interregnum without artistic direction, therefore without a conductor who directs and who programs.
But above all the orchestra, which has just celebrated its thirty years in a joyful and inclusive way during three days of celebration, is currently going through a bad financial patch. He considers that he is not sufficiently subsidized by the public authorities and was recently heard by the Finance Commission of the City of Geneva.
Despite these concerns, the Orchester de chambre de Genève (OCG) is keen to project itself into the future, for the public of Geneva and French-speaking Switzerland, and the appointment of Raphaël Merlin carries a positive momentum. With his multiple hats as a quartet player, conductor and teacher, the musician is accustomed to busy schedules and says he is ready to fully commit to his new activity. “This particularly full calendar fills me,” he told RTS.
An orchestra on a bicycle
The meeting between the Geneva phalanx and its new artistic director took place last spring. Raphaël Merlin was then performing with his orchestra, “Les forces majeures”, a bicycle tour from Grenoble. This two-wheeled journey took the musicians, their instruments and all who accompanied them across the Alps to Geneva.
The conductor conducted his orchestra and the Geneva Chamber Orchestra at the Victoria Hall. “The energies present really functioned in an unexpected way. Each minute of rehearsal produced something, each word was heard. The concert was a great moment of joy and sharing. I came out of this concert as after having took a bath in a high altitude lake, like when you feel completely pure and returned to yourselves. This kind of evidence put me on a channel where in the weeks that followed, knowing that the OCG n hadn’t yet appointed its new artistic director, I ended up telling myself that my place could be there”, explains Raphaël Merlin.
Create a framework for interpretation
Sensitive to changes in society, the chef sees himself as a theater director attentive to the needs of the actors. With the aim of “giving each actor the stage space so that his voice sounds as accurate as possible. (…) We create a framework in which interpretation can be born.”
In addition to the appointment of Raphaël Merlin, the OCG has two associate chefs for the same period (2023 to 2026): Gábor Takács Nagy and the young American-Korean Holly Che.
Radio subject: Benoît Perrier
Adaptation web: mh