Christ Church Cathedral
Amour Courtois: Medieval Meets Jazz
Artists: Matthew Baker, baryton; Efrén López, multi-instrumentalist; Baptiste Bailly, piano & arrangements
Pre-Concert Chat: 07:00pm hosted by Alexander Weimann with Baptiste Bailly.
Runtime: Approximately 100 min, no interval
Amour Courtois is a bold and evocative musical project led by French jazz pianist Baptiste Bailly, reimagining 14th-century French songs through the lens of contemporary improvisation. Inspired by the enduring emotional resonance of medieval melodies, Bailly collaborates with Matthew Baker on the baryton and Efren López on the hurdy-gurdy and ouds, crafting an anachronistic yet striking soundscape. Their repertoire – featuring works by Machaut, Binchois, and Lescurel – bridges centuries and highlights the timelessness of human expression.
Amour Courtois treats medieval songs not as static artifacts but as living works. While the original melodies are respected as closely as possible, with the aim of preserving their essence, the musicians change the settings, time signatures, chords, context, and costumes. Improvised or newly written passages are integrated into the pieces, like moments of intimate expression nourished by the eclecticism of their personalities and influences, revealing a touching and spontaneous musical craftsmanship, boundless and timeless.
Click here to read the programme notes
Generously sponsored by Sharon Kahn & Barrie MacFadden
Matthew Baker, baryton
Originally from Sioux City, Iowa, Matthew Baker began his professional music career as a double bassist at the early age of 13 with the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, first as section and later as principal double bass.
Matt leads a diversified performance career, having achieved recognition worldwide for his work in classical, jazz, folk, and theatrical performance around the world on both the baryton and double bass. He has had critical acclaim from concerts and recordings in publications such as The Strad, Gramophone, The Times, Ritmo, and Bass World, amongst many others and has had full length features written on his work in both The Strad and Ritmo.
Matt has worked with one of the world’s largest international classical labels, Naxos Records, over the last 8 years starting with the Elan Quintet in their ongoing project of resurrecting and recording George Onslow’s string quintets. Matt also published his own critical editions of these works under the publishing house of ISB Editions.
Efrén López, multi-instrumentalist
Efrén López was born in Valencia, Spain in 1972. He is a musician, composer, producer and sound engineer specialized in plucked string instruments from the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Central Asia.
He has studied hurdy gurdy and techniques of various Eastern Mediterranean instruments. He has participated in countless projects with musicians from all over Europe, the Arab world, Turkey, Iran and India.
Efrén is the founder of Trio Petrakis/López/Chemirani, L’Ham de Foc, Evo, Aman Aman, EAR and Sabir. He has performed all over the world with these projects and regularly gives workshops on instrumental technique and theory of Modal music. Since 2005, he organises traditional music workshops in the region of Valencia in Spain, bringing traditional forms closer to local musicians.
Baptiste Bailly, piano & arrangements
French musician Baptiste Bailly (1992) is a self-taught pianist who began playing at an early age, before entering the music conservatory of St Etienne to study under the great maestro Eric Moulin. After a period of 3 years he obtained the title of jazz pianist and a degree in Musicology. Interested in academics, he continued his studies at the higher school ‘PESM Bourgogne’ where he acquired a ‘National Certificate of Pedagogy’ in 2014. He next travelled to Barcelona to study with pianist Albert Bover.
His studies and inquisitive artistic restlessness have enabled him to discover and learn a great deal from classical music, made so evident by the way he improvises on piano. Inspired by Fred Hersh and Marc Copland, Baptiste tries to create open music, with hues of jazz culture and classical music at the same time. He has participated in a number of groups, such as the Big Band de Saint Etienne, L’as pas Lu Quartet or Michel Martin Dúo, Kartel y Horla Trio, Morse, Le Monde Merveilleux de Pepito and the MMC Trio.
