Christophe Coin (; born 26 January 1958) is a French

cellist The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 ...

viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

player and conductor active in the field of

historically informed performance Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of Western classical music, classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of ...

. He is the cellist of the

Quatuor Mosaïques The Quatuor Mosaïques is an Austrian string quartet, founded in 1987 by Erich Höbarth, Andrea Bischof, Anita Mitterer, and Christophe Coin, four members of the Concentus Musicus Wien who play on historical musical instruments. The name of the qu ...

and is the director of the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges.

Career

Born in

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

, he studied cello with

André Navarra André-Nicolas Navarra (Biarritz, 13 October 1911 – Siena, 31 July 1988) was a French cellist and cello teacher. Early life He was born into a musical family in Biarritz, his father being a bassist of Italian descent."'Play From The Stomach, ...

and graduated in 1974. From 1976, he studied on a scholarship in Vienna. He was influenced by

Nikolaus Harnoncourt Johann Nikolaus Harnoncourt or historically Johann Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt; () (6 December 1929 – 5 March 2016) was an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music ...

, among others. From 1978, he studied viola da gamba with

Jordi Savall Jordi Savall i Bernadet (; born 1 August 1941) is a Spanish conductor, composer and viol player. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for popularizing the viol family of ...

at the

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis The Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) is a music academy and research institution located in Basel, Switzerland, that focuses on early music and historically informed performance. Faculty at the school have organized performing ensembles that have ...

. He worked first mainly as a soloist. In 1984, he founded the ''Mosaïques Ensemble'' and in 1987 the string quartet ''

'' with Erich Höbarth, Andrea Bischof and Anita Mitterer, all players members of the

Concentus Musicus Wien Concentus Musicus Wien (CMW) is an Austrian baroque music ensemble based in Vienna. The CMW is recognized as a pioneer of the period-instrument performance movement. History Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Alice Harnoncourt co-founded the CMW in 1953 ...

. The quartet has performed mostly works of the classical period on period instruments, with a focus on less known works. After a 2012 concert in New York, their playing was reviewed as "balancing period instruments and historically informed performance practice with contemporary interpretive impulses like no other". Since 1991, Coin has been director of the ''Ensemble Baroque de Limoges'', for performances of cantatas, oratorio and operas of the 17th and 18th century on period instruments. Since 1988, Coin has been a teacher for Baroque cello and viola da gamba at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He has organised workshops on the building and playing of historic instruments. In 1991 he played as part of the sound-track to the French film '' Tous les Matins du Monde''.

Selected recordings

Coin has recorded some 50 CDs, both as a soloist and with ensembles. Several of them were awarded prizes. He recorded Purcell's trio sonatas and Haydn's cello concertos with

Christopher Hogwood Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood (10 September 194124 September 2014) was an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer, and musicologist. Founder of the early music ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music, he was an authority on historically info ...

. The Quatuor Mosaïques recorded

Luigi Boccherini Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (, also , ; 19 February 1743 – 28 May 1805) was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and ''galante'' style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major European ...

's quintets with Patrick Cohen playing

pianoforte The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. Beginning in 1993, Coin conducted and played Bach's ten

cantatas A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of t ...

with

violoncello piccolo The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, ...

within three years at the church of Ponitz, Thuringia, using its 1737

Gottfried Silbermann Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – August 4, 1753) was a German builder of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two. Life Very little is know ...

organ. Some cantatas feature the Leipziger Concerto Vocale, some the Chœur de Chambre Accentus, all the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges and soloists

Barbara Schlick Barbara Schlick (born 21 July 1943, Würzburg) is a German soprano who is particularly admired for interpretations of the concert literature of the baroque era. Career Schlick studied singing under at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg and in E ...

, Andreas Scholl, Christoph Prégardien and

Gotthold Schwarz Gotthold Schwarz (born 2 May 1952 in Zwickau) is a German Bass-baritone and conductor. Based in Leipzig, he started as a member of the Thomanerchor and has conducted the Gewandhausorchester. Between 2016 and 2021, he was the 17th Thomaskantor af ...

, including ''Jesu, nun sei gepreiset'', BWV 41 for

New Year's Day New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Wh ...

. A review notes: "As the piccolo cello soloist the supremely talented Christophe Coin plays with authority displaying exceptional control of phrasing and dynamics". In 2004, he recorded with the Quatuor Mosaiques

Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...

's six string quartets Op. 64.

References

External links

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Christophe Coin
Ensemble Baroque de Limoges

bach-cantatas.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Coin, Christophe French classical cellists French male conductors (music) French viol players 1958 births Living people Musicians from Caen 21st-century French conductors (music) 21st-century French male musicians 21st-century cellists