Canon Georges Durand created the Ensemble Vocal d’Avignon in 1965, with the purpose of interpreting a large range of works of sacred music from the motets of Palestrina or the masses of Frescobaldi to the great oratorios of Bach, Mendelssohn or Dvorak. He wanted this choir to be the principal player in the performance of sacred music in the Avignon area.

The Ensemble Vocal d’Avignon has built up rich musical associations to national and international levels. Close relations have been established, in Germany with the town of Hamburg, in Italy with the towns of Ferrara, Brescia, Bologna and Vicenza and in the Czech Republic with the city of Prague.

The choir consists of about 60 singers. They make up the full choir, working with soloists and orchestra on the large compositions and oratorios. Smaller groups, made up according to the pieces chosen, allow the performance of more modest works such as cantatas, masses or motets, sung a capella or accompanied by organ or small orchestra.

The choir has worked throughout its life with the orchestra of the city of Avignon. All the conductors of this orchestra have worked with our choir in concerts in the festival programme of “sacred music in Avignon”, in the programme of OLRAP (the Avignon orchestra) or in the performances of the Opera of Avignon. EVA has been able to perform with conductors such as Michelangelo Veltri, Ogan D’Narc, Martin Sieghart, François-Xavier Bilger, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Emil Tabakov, Bernard Têtu, Vincent Barthe and Jonathan Schiffman….. Working with such prestigious conductors has contributed much to EVA in introducing different and exciting musical interpretations.



To find out the dates of our forthcoming concerts, click here


To listen to extracts from our previous performances, click on the pictures on this page

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