The Orchestre d’Auvergne has gone digital. Earlier this year, it became the first orchestra in France to launch its own label, Orchestre d’Auvergne Live – a label numérique, the releases available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. Its latest offering is a Haydn violin concerto, the C major, and string orchestra arrangements of the Strauss Wind Serenade and the Bruckner String Quintet, with Thomas Zehetmair (right) as soloist and conductor.
The core of the orchestra is a full-time string section of 21 players – to which a wind section is often added – a scale that allows for both symphonic weight and chamber-like intimacy. Guillaume Chilemme, the orchestra’s leader, says, ‘We practise like a chamber group. It is like playing in a string quartet; you can go very deeply into a piece.’ Zehetmair agrees: ‘The atmosphere is very productive. It is an atmosphere of listening, of always being curious. The players often find the solutions among themselves, which is great for a conductor.’
The orchestra is based in the centre of France, in Clermont-Ferrand, a city surrounded by a string of extinct volcanoes called the Chaîne des Puys, whose picturesque summits grace the cover images of the new releases. Clermont-Ferrand is an industrial city, the home of the tyre manufacturer Michelin, which has long been the heart of its economy. But the city is changing. Government incentives have led to the founding of many digital start-up companies, and the city is becoming increasingly prominent as a cultural centre, not least for the Clermont- Ferrand International Short Film Festival, the largest of its kind in the world. A fitting venue, then, for an innovative new venture in digital music.