Métier Records Signs Outstanding French Cellist Gwendeline Lumaret for an album of works by Naji Hakim

Following the success of a recent album of music by French-Lebanese composer Naji Hakim for organ and other solo instruments, Métier will produce a new collection of Hakim’s music for cello performed by French Cellist Gwendeline Lumaret. The recording is to be made in Paris on 5^th and 6^th July, and is likely to see release towards the end of this year.

Gwendeline Lumaret and Naji Hakim © Michel Etchelet

The programme on this recording is devoted to Naji Hakim’s works for cello, comprising four works for the solo instrument and variations for cello and piano, where the composer plays alongside the cellist. Although Naji Hakim has been composing works for various formations – instrumental, vocal and symphonic – since 1986, it was not until 2020 that he decided to write for the cello, at the invitation of the late Armenian soloist Avetis Gyogchyan (1964-2022), for whom he composed the diptych Prélude et Habanera (2020). This was the starting point for the programme on this album. This was followed by the Missa cum jubilo (2020), inspired by Gregorian melodies, the Levantine Variations (2021) for cello and piano, as well as Arabesque and Variations (2021) for solo cello, dedicated to Gwendeline Lumaret, and finally, Montmartre (2023), initially written for solo viola; a piece inspired by the faith of the composer, who was organist at the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre from 1985 to 1993.

Gwendeline LUMARET is a graduate of the Conservatoire Régional de Lyon, the Conservatoire Régional de Boulogne-Billancourt, the École Normale de Musique de Paris, the Conservatorio Superior de Barcelona, the Schola Cantorum and the CNSM de Paris, in cello, chamber music, analysis, pedagogy and conducting. She is a First Prize winner in cello and chamber music at the Gaetano Braga and at the Union des Femmes Artistes Musiciennes International Competitions. She is member of the Orchestre Hexagone and the Coruscant Chamber Orchestra. Founder of the SAFPEM, she has published recordings with Azerbaijani singer Alim Qaasimov. She is currently employed as professor at the Conservatoire Régional in Besançon.

Naji HAKIM (b.1955) studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and won ten first prizes at international organ and composition competitions. He was the organist of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, succeeded Olivier Messiaen at the Église de la Trinité (Paris), and taught at the Conservatoire de Boulogne and at the Royal Academy of Music (London). He is doctor honoris causa of the Pontifical Holy Spirit University (Kaslik, Lebanon). His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI awarded him the Augustae crucis insigne pro Ecclesia et Pontifice. His works include instrumental, symphonic, and vocal music. www.najihakim.com