Introduction

After his musical studies – recorder, oboe and musicology – Denis Raisin Dadre formed the ensemble Doulce Mémoire in 1989. His keen interest in history, literature, and the arts in general, as well as music, leads him to devise programmes that are set in a historical context.

After thirty years of intense activity, with memorable achievements both in concert and on CD, his love for the Renaissance has never weakened. As Denis Raisin Dadre studies the material found in European libraries, transposes manuscript scores or tries out various instrumental possibilities, he questions preconceived ideas and sometimes even the vocabulary of music – and not only that of the Renaissance, for he often works with stage directors and choreographers on the creation of original types of performance.

Denis Raisin Dadre appears with his ensemble Doulce Mémoire at major venues in France and all over the world – Théâtre de Chaillot at Paris, Montpellier’s Opéra,  Santiago’s one too (Chili), Villa Médicis (Roma – Italia), Utrecht’s festivals (Netherlands), French May (Hong Kong), Boston (USA), Bergen (Norway), … etc.

He is regularly invited to take part in academies organised for the training of young musicians. Denis Raisin Dadre has taught, for example, at those of Gijon (Spain), Chiquitos (Bolivia), Prague (Czech Republic) and Havana (Cuba). He also teached for more than twenty years in the Department of Early Music at the Conservatoire in Tours.

Denis Raisin Dadre was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 1999.