Biography (read more)
Ensemble La Mandorle is a French early-music group founded in 2021 around two sisters and two friends: Clotilde Sors (violin), Camille Sors (cello), Victoire Delnatte (baroque oboe), and Élodie Brzustowski (theorbo, archlute, and baroque guitar). Built around the unusual combination of theorbo, oboe, violin, and cello, the ensemble focuses primarily on 17th- and 18th-century French repertoire, with particular affection for Robert de Visée, while remaining open to material from Gregorian chant to contemporary music. Selected for the Creative Europe-backed Sustainable-EEEmerging program, the group has performed at the Festival d’Ambronay, the Göttingen International Handel Festival, and other European early-music festivals, and undertakes outreach concerts in schools and hospitals in addition to its regular concert programming.
Still an early-career ensemble, La Mandorle has distinguished itself with an unusual continuo-led lineup that puts the theorbo at the center of a small chamber group rather than in a purely accompanying role, and its residencies through the EEEmerging+ program have placed it among a cohort of young European ensembles being groomed for wider recognition in the historically informed performance scene.
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