Elfie Bonnardel
Artiste freelance
Bassoon
Benjamin El Arbi | Orchestre des Frivolités Parisiennes | Bassoon Before receiving his academic education at the University for Music and Dance in Cologne, Germany, Benjamin started his bassoon lessons in his native Laon with Pierre Cathelain and Massimo Bambagioni. It is later in Paris and Saint-Maur-des-Fossés in the classes of Fany Maselli and Lionel Bord where we perfected his play, like he did for chamber music with tuition from Paul Meyer and Eric le Sage. He also studied political science and history at the university Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. Being an active musician, he shares his time between the so-called classic repertoire, film music, contemporary music, and, since 2014, teaching at the conservatory of Courbevoie in the Paris region. In 2012 he founded, together with Mathieu Franot, the company Les Frivolités Parisiennes, where he is co-director. The opera company cultivate the light lyrical French repertoire of the 19th and 20th century, intermingling singing and theatre. The ensemble cosists of a chamber orchestra and regularly invites singers, conductors, producers, and specialised musicologists. Each season, they produce new creations, recreations and recordings, they teach young singers in the interpretation of the repertoire and carry out educational activities with young people. Celebrated by the critics, the Frivolités, residents of the Imperial Theatre of Compiègne, of the City of Saint-Dizier and the Foundation Singer-Polignac, and partners of the Theatre of the Opéra Comique, started their ninth season in September 2020.