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A2S, Paris

Performed by Gwendeline Lumaret on the cello and Naji Hakim on the piano, this superb album offers—in eighteen tracks, ranging in length from less than two minutes to over six minutes—works composed by Hakim for solo cello or chamber music cello. Among these works, we should mention Montmartre, which, written in 2023, is “a deeply personal reflection on the history and spiritual resonance of the Parisian district of Montmartre,” where Hakim was organist of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica from 1985 to 1993, we are told. Born in Beirut in 1955 and naturalized as a French citizen in 1980, Hakim trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he earned first prizes in harmony, counterpoint, fugue, organ, improvisation, analysis, and orchestration. Hakim has also won first prizes in several international organ competitions, notably in Lyon, Nuremberg, Strasbourg, and Rennes. Influenced by Western classical music, as well as Middle Eastern music, Hakim has drawn inspiration from sources as diverse as Gregorian chant, Levantine folk music, and the harmonic innovations of French modernism, we are told. Her work includes instrumental pieces (for organ, but also for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, trumpet, harp, guitar, violin, cello, piano, and harpsichord), as well as symphonic and vocal music.

For her part, Gwendeline Lumaret trained at the Lyon Regional Conservatory, where, at the age of 15, she won prizes in cello and chamber music. She then studied at the Boulogne-Billancourt Regional Conservatory and the École Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred Cortot,” where she earned a concert diploma and a chamber music prize with unanimous congratulations from the jury. Lumaret holds both a master’s degree in pedagogy from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and a diploma in orchestral conducting from the Schola Cantorum de Paris. In 2004, Lumaret won First Prizes in cello and chamber music at the International Competition of the Union of Women Musician Artists as well as First Prize unanimously at the Gaetano Braga Performance Competition.