Ranskalainen ilta

Henriette Renié
Concert for harp and orchestra

Maurice Ravel
Introduktion and allegro

Louise Farrenc
Symphony No 3 G minor, op. 36

Félix Benati, conductor

Winner of the International Jorma Panula Conducting Competition 2024, Félix Benati is a French conductor, deeply invested in Opera and the symphonic repertoire of the 20th & 21st centuries. He made a remarkable debut with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France in April 2025, in a last-minute replacement for Mikko Franck in Debussy’s La Mer. He also made recent debuts with Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen-Normandie, Orchestre Pasdeloup and Filarmonica de Stat Sibiu (Romania), and will appear for the first time next season at Théâtre du Châtelet, with Vaasa City Orchestra, Jyväskylä Sinfonia (Finland) and Filarmonica de Stat Dinu Lipatti (Romania). Felix likes to conceive his concert programs within a constant search to combine vocal & instrumental music, from Berio’s Folk Songs to Strauss’ Salome, Felix has thus worked on such various repertoire as Francis Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème or Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle alongside Michael Schonwandt, Alexandre Bloch and Kristiina Poska from 2023 to 2025, when he was assistant conductor at the Orchestre National de Lille and the Orchestre Français des Jeunes. During the same period he worked alongside international soloists such as Elisabeth Leonskaja, Asmik Grigorian, Alexandre Tharaud, Véronique Gens, Pene Pati etc. Felix is a regular guest conductor at Orchestre Elektra and Ensemble Multilatérale.

Felix Benati graduated from the Conservatoire National de Paris in Alain Altinoglu’s conducting class in 2023. He assisted Mikko Franck with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France through Richard Strauss lyrical repertoire and Lucie Leguay in Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. He worked with Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Ensemble InterContemporain, Orchestre de Picardie, Orchestre Régional de Normandie and great conductors like Mikko Franck, Arie van Beek, Pascal Rophé and Bertrand de Billy.

His love for voice has also led him to choir and vocal companies: he co-founded Les Temps Dérobés in 2017, a young professional vocal ensemble crossing the a cappella repertoires of all epoches, which he conducted for 5 years; he also worked as musical director, pianist, répétiteur and singer with the Ensemble Poursuite from 2019 to 2022. He was guest conductor with Les Métaboles, Aedes, Sequenza 9.3 and assistant conductor of the Mikrokosmos Choir from 2017 to 2021. Felix is also invested in transmission, and created/conducted many educative projects with the various ensembles he worked with. In 2017, he was guest conductor of the Kolkata Youth Orchestra. He is a member of the Amis d’Olivier Greif Association.

Sivan Magen, harp

Described by the NY Times as a ”harpist of extraordinary range” whose ”brilliant sound and remarkable technical acumen shatter any stereotype of his instrument”, Sivan Magen is the only Israeli to have ever won the International Harp Contest in Israel, and is a winner of the Pro Musicis International Award as well as of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. From 2017–2023 he was principal harpist of the Finnish Radio Orchestra, and since Summer 2023 he is the professor for harp at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

Sivan Magen appeared as a recitalist and as a soloist with orchestras across the US, South America, East Asia, Europe and Israel, in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the Vienna Konzerthaus, and with orchestras such as the Israel, Tampere and Strasbourg Philharmonics, the Finnish Radio Orchestra, the Tapiola Sinfonietta, the Jerusalem Camerata, the Saint-Paul, Vienna and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, and the Sydney, Jerusalem and Israel Symphony Orchestras.

In addition to two solo albums for Linn Records, Magen has released acclaimed recordings for Avie, Azica, Koch International, ECM, and with Musicians for Marlboro. His most recent recording for Ondine is of the harp concerto ”Sigla” by Lotta Wennäkoski, commissioned for him by the Finnish Radio Symphony. The album was the winner of the 2023 Gramophone Award in the ”contemporary” category.

Aside from his activity as a soloist, Mr Magen is an avid chamber musician and has appeared at the Marlboro, Aspen, Rosendal, Kuhmo, Rauma, Rusk, Delft, Staunton, Stift, Giverny and Jerusalem International Chamber Music festivals, the Cleveland and Ottawa Chamberfests, with Musicians from Marlboro, and collaborated with artists such as Tabea Zimmermann, Antje Weithaas, Nobuko Imai, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Gary Hoffman, Emmanuel Pahud, Susanna Phillips, the Danel, Pacifica, Ariel, Calder, New Helsinki and Dover quartets and members of the Guarneri and Juilliard Quartets.

He is a founding member of trio Tre Voci with flutist Marina Piccinini and violist Kim Kashkashian, with whom he has toured extensively in Europe and the US, and has released to great critical acclaim a CD for ECM of music by Debussy, Gubaidulina and Takemitsu. They are constantly working to expand the flute-viola-harp repertoire by commissioning arrangements and original pieces – their 2018 program included a new commission of a trio by Toshio Hosokawa which had its European premiere at London’s Wigmore Hall.

Since January 2008 Mr Magen is also a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project, a group which performs in both outreach venues and major concert halls internationally, including the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Town Hall, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, the Morgan Library and Bargemusic in New York City, The Budapest Music Center and the Israeli Conservatory in Tel Aviv. The ICP is the winner of the 2011 Israeli Ministry of Culture Outstanding Ensemble Award. The last season, which was their 18th season, included extended tours across the US, Canada, Japan and Israel.

In addition to his position in Berlin, Mr Magen teaches at the Musica Mundi School in Belgium, and was until recently a guest professor at the Academy for Music and Theater in Tallinn, Estonia. Between 2013–2017 he was a faculty member of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, and in spring 2017 he was an invited professor at the Paris Conservatory. He regularly presents masterclasses in schools such as The Juilliard School, The Curtis Institute, The Peabody Institute, The New England Conservatory, the Paris Conservatory, London’s Royal Academy, Royal College, Guildhall School and Trinity College, as well as the summer Academy in Nice, the Kuhmo Festival Academy in Finland, and the Aspen Music Festival. In addition, he has been invited to serve as member of the jury of the International Harp Contest in Israel, the USA International Harp Competition, the Netherlands International Harp Competition, the Lyon & Healy Awards and the Vera Dulova International Harp Competition in Moscow, and served as Head of the Jury of the National Harp Contest in Taiwan and the international harp contest in Szeged, Hungary.

Born in Jerusalem, Sivan Magen studied the piano with Benjamin Oren and Talma Cohen and the harp with Irena Kaganovsky-Kessler at the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance. After completing his military service as an ”Outstanding Musician” in 2001, he continued his studies with Germaine Lorenzini in France and then joined Isabelle Moretti’s harp class at the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP) from which he graduated with a “Premier Prix”. He has then completed a Master of Music degree as a student of Nancy Allen at the Juilliard School in New York.