" (...) Listening to these artists, seeing them work, how can we not have the feeling that our era, despite its pains, is also marked by a thousand promises?
Frédérick Casadesus, Mediapart, November 2021
Based in Marseille and founded in 2015 by Lila Hajosi, Ensemble Irini specializes in sacred early music from the East and West, between Rome and Constantinople, and is internationally recognized for its exacting standards and unique, out-of-the-ordinary and daring proposals, far from the usual codes of Early Music.
Ensemble Irini has established a sound of its own in vocal music today: polymorphous in size, with no soprano, the ensemble nonetheless illuminates the Orthodox repertoire or Renaissance com-positions with new, warm and profound colors.
From Maria Nostra (2015, Choc de Classica disc in 2018) to JANUA (2023-24) via O Sidera (2019, disc in 2021) and Printemps Sacré, vivre, mourir, (re)naître (2022-24 TTTT de Télérama, 4 stars from La Libre Belgique), Ensemble Irini's programs open up dialogues between the sacred East and West, between the wisdom of yesterday and the upheavals of today, true to its name, which means "Peace" in Greek.
In 2025-2026, Ensemble Irini enters a new era with POST TENEBRAS (spero lucem), its most ambitious program yet, featuring repertoire from the beginnings of the Venetian and Byzantine Baroque, in double choir with brass. The creation of INVICTAE, a women's program returning to the ensemble's medieval roots, enables it to offer for the first time a total, multi-disciplinary show, with voice, dance and staging.
Fond of opening up and collaborating, Ensemble Irini co-created PROPHITISSAI in 2024 with Tom de Cock, combining Lassus, Xenakis and ancient Greek and Byzantine music, followed in 2025 by THE BOOK OF WOMEN, with the Ictus orchestra. These two creations, combining contemporary and early music, were commissioned by Bruges' MAFestival.
If the ensemble is today invited to prestigious venues and festivals in France and abroad, and supported by the Fondation Société Générale and the Caisse des Dépôts, it's thanks to the energy of its director, Lila Hajosi, and a solid team of seasoned chamber musicians. Originally a singer before becoming a conductor, Lila Hajosi succeeds in embodying her musicological and aesthetic reflections in fascinating concerts that carry us away, almost in spite of ourselves.
