Anne Azéma
French-born vocalist, scholar and stage director Anne Azéma has directed The Boston Camerata since 2008 and the French ensemble Aziman, which she founded, since 2005. Intensely engaged since her student days with the song repertoire of the Middle Ages, she is esteemed as a charismatic solo performer. But she is also widely admired for her creative skill in building and directing complete musical productions of varied styles and periods, both for her recital programs and for larger ensemble forces (concert and stage) in Europe and the United States.
Anne Azéma’s current discography of 40 recordings as a soloist (Grand Prix du Disque; Edison Prize) includes five widely acclaimed solo CD recitals. Since assuming the directorship of The Boston Camerata in 2008, she has created a series of seventeen new productions, acclaimed by press and public alike. Ms. Azéma is also in demand as a recitalist, presenting her original programs to audiences in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with either Shira Kammen (vielle and harp), or Nigel North (lutes). Her collaboration with the Tero Saarinen Dance Company (Helsinki, Finland) around early American songs has been praised on three continents. Her 2007 music theater creation The Night’s Tale – Le Tournoi de Chauvency, based on a 14th century French narrative, is in continued demand, and was slated to tour in the US in 2020. 2017 marked the creation of a commissioned program in coordination with an international exhibit project of late Medieval artifacts (Art Gallery Ontario, Toronto, The Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) with a CD issued in 2019 (NAXOS) to critical acclaim. In November 2014, she edited, directed and staged The Play of Daniel to critical and public acclaim; the production was successfully reprised in 2017, 2018 and in early 2020. In 2021, Ms. Azéma was named Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government.
Among Anne Azéma’s teaching activities are master classes, seminars, and residencies at conservatories and universities in the US and abroad. She has contributed articles to scholarly and general audience publications. Ms. Azéma was the Robert M. Trotter Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Oregon Eugene in 2012 and again in 2020. She has been invited to lecture at New York University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brandeis and Boston University, and is currently a faculty member at the Longy School of Music of Bard College. In 2022, Early Music America presented Anne Azéma with the Thomas Binkley Award which honors individuals who, in their roles as leaders of collegiate early-music ensembles, have made outstanding contributions to the study and performance of early music. In 2017, she was presented with the Distinguished Artist Award of the Saint Botolph Foundation, Boston. Her second film appearance received two prizes at the Montréal FIFA (2014). She has taught at the Fondazione Cini, Venice; the Fondazione Benetton, Treviso; the Schola Cantorum, Basel. Anne Azéma’s new collaboration with the label Harmonia Mundi grew from two programs of early American music commissioned in 2018 by the Philharmonie de Paris. Anne Azéma is currently hard at work on early music theater projects for the ensemble and a ‘medieval’ video game.