April 2026 – **** La Libre Belgique, JANUA – album
“This recording creates the illusion of standing, alongside Dufay, on the edge of a precipice—or, more literally, at the center of his sonic impressions. In this bloodbath, only humanity remains.”
April 2026 – En Pistes! France Musique, JANUA – album
Album of the Day 04/10/2026
March 2026 – Olyrix, POST TENEBRAS
“The choir captivates with a clear, uniform sound, free of vibrato, in keeping with the aesthetic standards of the era. A few crystalline notes emerge from the soprano section without, however, disrupting the overall balance. Despite the size of the ensemble, the sound remains surprisingly supple, carried by carefully crafted phrasing and exceptionally smooth attacks.”
“At the podium, Lila Hajosi […] employs broad, fluid gestures, at times almost dance-like. While this expressiveness contributes to the fluidity of the musical discourse, it is accompanied by a constant metronomic precision, ensuring excellent ensemble precision and impeccable vertical clarity.”
“The audience’s enthusiasm was immediate: warmly applauded, the artists were called back several times and performed an encore. The concert concluded with a “meet-and-greet” session, a special moment of interaction between the performers and an audience that was clearly captivated.”
“The sackbut (the predecessor of the modern trombone) adds an essential element of color to the overall sound. Its tone, both metallic and velvety, blends naturally with the vocal texture without ever overpowering it.”
"[...] the ensemble impresses with its cohesion and the quality of its integration into the choral ensemble."
March 2026 – Res Musica, POST TENEBRAS
“We appreciate both the consistency and the flexibility of the vocal sections”
“(…) The sackbut players—the valiant Sandie Griot, Solveig Rousse, Olivier Dubois, and Clémentine Serpinet—take center stage (…) a challenge well met by these ‘instruments of darkness’ (as Monteverdi put it), which lack the agility of flutes!”
“A group working in perfect harmony under the direction of Lila Hajosi”
March 2026, Olyrix, JANUA – album
“An era that the Ensemble Irini portrays with exquisite delicacy, enhanced by the spacious sound of the recording, which highlights the clarity and transparency of the a cappella polyphonic structure.”
“Although the choir’s performance is precise, almost down to the millimeter, the listener is left with a genuine sense of fluidity.”
“What emerges, both vocally and instrumentally, is a sense of lines and contours whose strict geometry resonates with poetry.”
"This poetry is reflected in the light and the clear contrasts in the voices."
“In short, there is no austerity in this world, which is rich in a rare sensitivity.”
March 2026, Total Baroque, JANUA - album
“An album that is both scholarly and sensory”
“(…) a journey that is as rigorous as it is sensitive, where Guillaume Dufay’s Franco-Flemish polyphonies rub shoulders with the long lines of Byzantine chant, in a fully embraced interplay of contrasts. Grounded in in-depth research into both the sources and the sound, the project brings together two ways of experiencing music”
March 2026, Première Loge, JANUA – APPASSIONATO Album
“A Miraculous Recital”
“From the very first seconds of the album, we hear once again that little sonic miracle that already captivated listeners on the previous CD, *Printemps sacré*”
“a high-quality performance.”
October 2025, Crescendo Magazine, *The Rite of Spring* – album
"Neither sincerity nor fervor are lacking in the accomplishment of this cultural embassy: an encounter that is a priori surprising, but ultimately revealing and meaningful."
July 2025, Crescendo magazine, JANUA, Beaune
"Lila Hajosi's precise, expressive conducting sculpts the timbres of each singer and sublimates the vocal combinations. The ensemble demonstrates remarkable cohesion, offering this ancient repertoire a lively reading, full of meaning and contemporary resonance."
May 2025, Paroles Protestantes, SACRED SPRING – album
"The superb sound color of Ensemble Irini, warm and velvety, and the musical and spiritual commitment of Lila Hajosi and her singers, overwhelm us in this three-stage journey..."
February 2025, 440 Clàssica, SACRED SPRING – album
"The voices weave movingly pure polyphonic interplays in a mysterious and captivating work."
December 2024, En Pistes! France Musique, THE SACRED SPRING – album
Best of 2024
December 2024, Scherzo, *The Rite of Spring* – album
“In recent years, we’ve often been told—sometimes even more than we would have liked—that it’s good to step outside your comfort zone.”
"This is undoubtedly a bold initiative that breaks with the usual conventions of early music recording projects."
November 2024, Télérama, *The Rite of Spring* – album – TTTT
"(...) the timbres are superb, well-characterized and yet fused. A quest for depth and purity guides the work on sound, which borders on the sublime in the Virgo Prudentissima motet, with its polychrome, transformist stained-glass window allure."
November 2024, La Libre, *Sacred Spring* – album – ****
"Exciting and beautifully executed. "
November 2024, Première Loge, *The Rite of Spring* – album
"Lila Hajosi knows how to maintain high musicological ambitions from disc to disc, and this new recording sets the bar very high in terms of demanding repertoire and editorial quality."
"Placing Ensemble Irini's new disc on the turntable and listening to it in the continuity of its thirteen tracks is akin to a form of invigorating spiritual retreat. "
"Stripped of all instrumental accompaniment, Lila Hajosi's work consists of tuning the timbres of her nine singers into polyphonies of varying dimensions, all of which speak to the heart as much as to the mind. These deep, gravelly voices emanate a serenity and a kind of wisdom whose sincerity is deeply moving.
November 2024, Musikzen, PRINTEMPS SACRÉ – album
"From the outset, a motet by Heinrich Isaac defines the quest for purity and the sacred, and sets the tone for this demanding but exciting album, where we discover the beauties of Georgian liturgical chants, performed with a rigor that tends towards perfection."
November 2024, Famille Chrétienne, PRINTEMPS SACRÉ – album
"The rendering is striking: for some pieces, language notwithstanding, you no longer know who's who. Two lungs, but one faith."
October 2024, Qobuz, THE SACRED SPRING – album
"(...) at the beginning of the month, the remarkable vocal ensemble Irini (...) delivered Printemps sacré, an audacious program (...) a rarity not to be missed under any circumstances".
October 2024, ForumOpera, THE SACRED SPRING – album
"All their interpretations, a cappella, stand out for their quality of emission, freshness, suppleness and rigor. "
"(...) the ensemble sings, round and fleshy, with rare suppleness and remarkable line control. "
October 2024, Classikeo, *The Rite of Spring* – album
The disc begins with a motet by Isaac and then moves on to Georgian songs. The richness and profusion of vocal colors first strike the listener, as dark, low voices are superimposed one on top of the other, enhanced by the brightness of the mezzos' clear voices. But what strikes the listener most, as the listening progresses, is the rigor and precision with which the interpretation is carried out - a work of drawing, of tracing the outline of the music by the voices, as with a geometrical figure. Special mention should be made of the small incursion into Greek liturgy with Christos Anesti, where the clarity of the voices seems to sculpt the music. A success, for Ensemble Irini, in this work of both research and vocal rendition.
Why we love it:
For the quality of polyphonic interpretation
For the effort to restore Georgian music
For the historical research work carried out by the entire
August 2024, Olyrix, JANUA
"In the former church of Saint-Germain-d'Auxerre in Vault-de-Lugny, these ensembles of medieval polyphonies resonate, revived with light by Ensemble Irini. The balance is immediately noticeable, as is the dynamism with which the voices respond to each other, tuning and linking up (...) The entry into the Orthodox repertoire immediately contrasts with Dufay's pieces, with the more imposing presence of the basses, but the care given to precision is identical, if not better. Last but not least, the instrumentalists are not to be outdone, particularly highlighted in a medieval trumpet duet full of density and dazzling colors".
August 2024, La Croix, JANUA
"The Ensemble Irini [...] has proposed a spellbinding journey through time and the history of the Christian Churches. [...] The concert, built with intelligence and sensitivity around the polyphonic gems composed by Dufay, invites our contemporary ear to sail from West to East. The sound balance is based on the vocal personalities of the singers, the subtle blend of profound humanity of timbre, simplicity of expression and perfect musical flexibility. Everything sounds just right, noble and intense. Sandie Griot and Claire McIntyre support the voices in Dufay's pieces (all of which are confoundingly beautiful), and punctuate the proceedings with a few purely instrumental interventions, adding the golden hues of early brass to the ambient magic. With gentleness and fervor, elegance and sobriety. [...] "
August 2024, First Box at the Opera, JANUA
"[...]The same atmosphere of inter-religious dialogue that characterized the first half of the 15th century is the backdrop to the demanding program concocted by Ensemble Irini for the third day of the Rencontres musicales de Vézelay. Skillfully crafted by Lila Hajosi, the concert is organized into three phases: Union - Council - Fall, and musically illustrates the attempt to bring the Churches of Rome and Constantinople closer together at the Council of Florence in 1439. [...] Ten protagonists - eight singers and two trumpeters - are all it takes to recreate this atmosphere on the fringes of medieval Europe in the charming setting of the Vault-de-Lugny church. To the audience's thunderous applause, Lila Hajosi's silhouette, a tattooed conductor with a boyish hairdo, suddenly takes on an air of extreme fragility, and the few words she timidly utters to remind us of the close links between Ensemble Irini and the Cité de la voix are tinged with genuine sincerity. We are grateful to her for having opened the door to the iconostasis of Orthodox churches, and for having made the mystery of Eastern Christian liturgy accessible to the Rencontres musicales audience".
August 2024, KREISZEITUNG, JANUA
"Our "Great Night of Music" ends in St. Johann im Schnoor with an almost transcendental musical experience. The Ensemble Irini, from Marseille in France, has specialized in early sacred music since its foundation almost ten years ago, virtually sailing between East and West. Ensemble Irini at the music festival: from Marseille to Constantinople: the program included works by Guillaume Dufay, Janus Plousiadenos and Manuel Doukas Chrysaphes. Dufay worked in Rome in the late 15th century, while Plousiadenos and Chrysaphes were active around the same time in Constantinople. They played under the direction of Lila Hajosi, whose conducting hinted at the complexity of this music, which may seem mysterious to the untrained ear. However, it is imbued with a charm that is easily revealed: at times, broad arcs unfurled above held notes, at other times the four singers and two trombonists wove their voices into fragile interweavings - and the trombonists also once had their moment of glory without vocal accompaniment. Only a fireworks display, clearly not on the program, briefly interrupted the mood of this wonderful concert, which transported its audience back to a bygone era, when the separation of the Church between East and West had to be overcome."
August 2024, NWZ ONLINE, JANUA
"After the orchestral sound acclaimed by the public, the great contrast: in St. Johann im Schnoor, the Irini ensemble, led by conductor Lila Hajosi, sings. This [...] top-quality ensemble takes us back to the meditative, intimate sound world of the Renaissance. For example, with the early polyphony of the great Franco-Flemish master Guillaume Dufay, who once officiated at the papal chapel. Alongside him, Byzantine liturgical music from the 14th and 15th centuries, with its distinctive melody, rarely heard here, unfolds a strange magic for our ears."
October 2022, Zébuline, SACRED SPRING
"The rightly placed voices soar pure. Occasionally a slight natural vibrato adds a touch of extra meaning."
"On most of the pieces, the choir features the full ensemble: mezzo-sopranos, Eulàlia Fantova Alvarez, Clémence Faber, contraltos, Julie Azoulay, Lauriane Le Prev, tenors, Olivier Merlin, Matthieu Chapuis, basses, Guglielmo Buonsanti, Sebastien Brohier, but sometimes only four or six voices. The originality of this choir lies in the union of male and female voices, which some purists insist on separating when it comes to early music".
[...] This necessary step leads [...] to Heinrich Isaac's dazzling Virgo Prudentissima, a veritable masterpiece of constantly renewed, alternating, woven, interwoven threads, taken up again in a supple circulation between the different desks.
The result is an impression of plenitude that transports the audience.
"The verb is music, resplendent in its radiance."
July 2022 Musicologie.org, O SIDERA
"In the ideally airy acoustics of the monks' refectory, the Irini ensemble ("peace" in Greek) displays all the splendor of 14th-century Latin polyphony, with the Chant des Sybilles by Roland de Lassus.
We admire the quality of the ensemble, its homogeneity, its tonal hyper-precision in the Latin pieces, but it is above all in the Byzantine part that the magic fully operates".
Most of the pieces have been arranged by the ensemble's conductor, Lila Hajosi, in a spirit that seems perfectly authentic.
She conducts with precision and suppleness, helping herself for the last two pieces with a censer from which one could easily imagine the purifying smoke emerging [...] ".
April 2022, Res Musica, O SIDERA – album
In the realm of the impalpable, the new recording by the Irini O Sidera ensemble blends East and West with a mystical depth that each listener will perceive (...)
This interpretation by Eulalià Fantova (mezzo-soprano), Julie Azoulay (contralto), Benoît-Joseph Meier (tenor), Guglielmo Buonsanti and Alessandro Ravasio (basses), seems meticulously sculpted, or approached like a skilful mathematical (...)
With these liturgical tunes, time is lengthened for a vibrant spiritual trance that no longer requires words.
February 2022, En Pïstes! France Musique, O SIDERA – album
Album of the Day, February 28, 2022
February 2022, Olyrix, O SIDERA – Philharmonie de Paris
Refined and powerful, the sound is richly developed, carried by the voices of the ensemble's five soloists.
Mezzo Eulalia Fantova's high notes sound deep, ornamented with austere accuracy and pure line.
The clearer, deeper voice of contralto Julie Azoulay is particularly resonant in the Byzantine repertoire.
Alessandro Ravasio impresses with an abysmal bass voice, complex, supple and highly operatic.
Guglielmo Buonsanti, for his part, has the austere, calm and composed prosody of serious orthodoxy. The more baroque tenor Benoît-Joseph Meier's voice is lively, supple and precise.
Under the direction of musicologist and young conductor Lila Hajosi, the prosody typical of Madrigalist music is offered up in powerful accents. The music soars and suspends time with these aerial voices, between wisdom and the force of seizure, a sacred journey.
December 2021, La Revue du spectacle, O SIDERA – album
The Irini ensemble combines dramatic effectiveness and expressive depth, serving this contrapuntal writing with subtlety and heart.
(...) the ensemble extracts us from our noisy, dark world for a luminous journey beyond known boundaries, and invites us to a "contemplation of its share of infinity".
After the sibyls, Irini's singers become six-winged cherubs. The aim is always to raise our eyes to the heavens and question the mystery of the universe.
Lila Hajosi's introductory text to this beautiful project, entitled Un chant sans divertissement (A song without entertainment) in the CD booklet, calls for demanding and, let's say, philosophical listening - for a moment imbued with spirituality.
December 2021, Bettina Winkler, SWR2, O SIDERA – album
A happy blend of aesthetics and a result worthy of the effort. A Christmas favorite.
December 2021, Musikzen, O SIDERA – album
(...) These Prophecies are a plunge into mystery. Interpreting these scores, full of sharps and flats, is a challenge of the kind quietly met by Ensemble Irini, which focuses on rather mystical and little-known a capella repertoires.
What's more, in order to emphasize the need for spiritual introspection and attempt to bring "Man [...] back into the groove of a symbiotic awareness of his existence" (Lila Hajosi), the program adds to the music of Roland de Lassus a number of liturgical pieces from Constantinople, endowed with the same meditative virtues.
November 2021, Mediapart, O SIDERA – album
(...) 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?
November 2021, Olyrix, O SIDERA – album
Celestial music, suspended time and ethereal voices, Ensemble Irini succeeds in dematerializing our modern world to the musical horizons of the European Renaissance and Byzantine (...)
Here, more intimate, more minimalist and precise, Ensemble Irini approaches medieval musical lines with the precision of an architecture supervised by the young conductor.
Currently training with Sergio Monterisi, the conductor's vocal mastery gives the ensemble great coherence, both in vocal expression and in musical choices.
November 2021, Classical Music & Co, O SIDERA – album
(...) a beautiful interiority. The disc alternates de Lassus' Prophéties de la Sybille with Byzantine liturgical chants.
Some anonymous pieces from Constantinople bring a welcome liveliness.
Highly polished performance by Ensemble Irini conducted by Lila Hajosi.
October 2021, Luister Magazine, O SIDERA – album – 9/10
Vocally, the motets are extremely demanding and in this performance by Ensemble Irini under the direction of Lila Hajosi, they are impressive for the virtuoso swirls of the voices and their fiery harmonies.
October 2021 Froggydelight.com, O SIDERA – album
(...) The interpretation is as inspired, mystical, almost metaphysical as it is mysterious (there is something mysterious about this function of chromaticism). A record that speaks to the ears as well as to the soul...
February 2019, Classica – MARIA NOSTRA – album – CHOC
(...) This first recording by the Irini ensemble is a marvel of gentleness, intimacy and homogeneity.
Rarely have timbres and tessituras been so well matched, despite the singers' different backgrounds and universes.
The sheer depth of these three voices, with their surprisingly low tessitura, makes the album a delight to listen to(...).