Julie Phan is a Belgian mezzo-soprano who developed a great passion for art song, chamber music and duo repertoire under the guidance of Christoph Prégardien at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne. This special affinity has led to her performing at various festivals and venues such as the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Charleroi, the German Embassy in Brussels, the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn and the Musik in den Häusern der Stadt festival in Cologne lied.
In 2024 she won first prize at the Gen Re Music Competition in Cologne and the Wiener Klassik Prize at the Vienna International Classical Singing Competition. She is also a laureate of the Vocatio Foundation in Belgium.
She works closely with her pianist Julia Mikhailova, with whom she shares a deep commitment to exploring new repertoire, in particular lesser-known works, including those by female composers and contemporary works.
Julie Phan, mezzo-soprano
Julia Mikhailova, piano
The programme Histoires naturelles gets its name from the two works that are central to this programme: Histoires naturelles by Maurice Ravel from 1906 and the work of the same name by the French-Dutch composer Camille van Lunen from 2018. It brings together a varied selection liederen, including some liederen by female composers, all connected by a single common thread: animals.
From Jean de La Fontaine’s fables, adapted by Isabelle Aboulker, to the evocative portraits of Maurice Ravel, Johannes Brahms and Sergei Rachmaninoff, and from the 20th-century sounds of Rebecca Clarke, Olivier Messiaen, Samuel Barber and Camille van Lunen, this programme invites listeners to experience animals in all their guises: as confidants, as mirrors of human emotions, or as a source of humour and gentle satire.
In this colourful programme, we take you on a journey to a world where liederen about animals not only brings us closer to them, but also to ourselves.
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