
Twenty years after the CD "De la pierre au son", the Ensemble Kérylos has the pleasure to release a new recording, in two digital parts, of the complete works currently known from Ancient Greek and Roman Antiquity.
The first part is available on amazon, google play and itunes. It brings a new performance of the works that were already on "De la pierre au son": the Roman kithara, built after the fisrt CD release, is now played; numerous scores have been studied again in light of recent research and the artistic reasoning has gone on. An unrecorded work also joins this first part: it is the Paean to Apollo by Mesomedes of Crete, one of the most famous musicians of the second century A.D.
The second part, to appear, will contain the remaing works, still unpublished.
We would like to deeply thank those who, through their donations, made this new recording possible.
Direction: Annie Bélis. Recording Director: Sylvain Leclerc. Recorded in october 2014 at Studios de la Seine, Paris. Sound engineer: Sylvain Mercier; assistant: David Galstanian. Mastering: Bruno Gruel. Jacket: photography of the Greek kithara of the Ensemble Kérylos by Patrick Gaillardin.


L’Ensemble Kérylos brille d’un certain talent orphique pour redonner vie à ces mélopées. Ici, les soli, chantés ou déclamés, le chœur, les jeux instrumentaux nuancés proposent une relecture qui tend vers une certaine universalité. Une gravure unique et inouïe, qui nous plonge dans les mythes de nos racines les plus fascinantes.
Founded in 1990 by Annie Bélis, a world-renowned specialist in Ancient Greek and Roman music, the Ensemble Kérylos focuses exclusively on performing the vocal and instrumental scores that have survived from that period.
What marks out the Ensemble Kérylos is its scientific and artistic high-level quality: for years it has endeavoured to revive a magnificent but still very little known musical repertoire, as faithfully as possible, so that scores which had not been played for more than 15 centuries could be brought back to life again.
All the scores interpreted by the Ensemble Kérylos are authentic: they come from extant inscriptions and papyri, which are deciphered, through hard, methodical labour, by Annie Bélis and her team of researchers. Besides works which have been known for many years, such as the excerpt from the chorus score from Euripides’ Orestes, the Seikilos Song or the two Delphic Hymns to Pythian Apollo, the Ensemble Kérylos brings back to life musical works which have just been deciphered and are amazingly beautiful and transporting: an unbelievable, and hilarious, excerpt from Aristophanes’ Birds, a paean by Mesomedes of Crete, Emperor Hadrian’s favourite composer, an extract from Carcinus’ Medea, a magnificent anonymous paean to the stars, etc.
The lyres, kitharas, wind instruments and percussions played by the Ensemble Kérylos have been rebuilt on strict archaeological reference (iconography and fragments from instruments found during archaeological excavations). They are the result of a long and thorough work that has required close cooperation between Annie Bélis and French and Spanish luthiers Jean-Claude Condi and Carlos Gonzales.
The interpretation of the musical pieces is based on the aesthetical principles prevailing in ancient times, as far as we can know them from the extant theoretical texts.
Among the many concerts that have introduced the Ensemble Kérylos to a large audience, one can mention the concerts in Spain, Brazil, Greece (at the Ancient Theatre at Delphi, 1992), in Poland (concluding concert for Crakow Capital of Europe Culture festival, 2000), in France (at the Sorbonne’s Grand Amphithéâtre, 2004; at the Louvre’s Grand Auditorium, 2011).
In 1996, the Ensemble Kérylos recorded the CD “De la pierre au son: musiques de l’Antiquité grecque et romaine”, which won critical acclaim and medals as a result of the beautiful and accurate performance. Since then, the repertoire has largely expanded, several new scores being deciphered. But many of these works, such as the excerpts from Aristophanes’ Birds or Carcinus’ Medea, cannot yet be heard, unless you attend live performances of the Ensemble Kérylos. A new recording was made, the first part of which was released in June, 2016.