La Chacana & Pierre Hamon
Biographie La Chacana & Pierre Hamon
La Chacana
More than ten years ago, Pierre Hamon’s tireless quest to explore humanity’s fundamental gestures and sounds, as well as the origins of music, led him to the soundscapes of pre-Columbian civilizations and Native American traditions. This journey was enriched by pivotal encounters and fruitful exchanges with musicians, researchers, ethnomusicologists, and archaeomusicologists, as well as with the Argentine filmmaker Juan Antin.
In search of a composer capable of integrating into his writing an imagination inspired by both Inca music and Spanish Renaissance music, Juan Antin entrusted him with composing the original score for his animated feature film Pachamama (nominated for a César Award in 2019). This musical creation, acclaimed by international film critics, marked a decisive turning point.
It was by returning to the source of inspiration for this film music that the ensemble La Chacana was born. Its ambition is to introduce the public, in a lively and sensitive way, to musical worlds that appear distant: on the one hand, the polyphony of the Iberian Renaissance; and, on the other, the soundscapes of pre-Hispanic civilizations, based on profoundly different acoustic and spiritual concepts. The ensemble also explores hybrid musical forms resulting from the encounter between Europeans and Indigenous peoples.
The name “La Chacana” refers to a very ancient sacred symbol of Andean civilization, closely linked to the Inca and pre-Inca cultures of the Andes mountain range. This Andean cross embodies a worldview that is both cosmological and spiritual. True to this heritage, the ensemble offers an approach that is historically informed by the repertoires of the Iberian Renaissance and the earliest collections of ancient music from South America and Mesoamerica. It combines this with the traditional practice of Andean instruments, as well as a vibrant creative process, fueled by imagination, centered on pre-Hispanic soundscapes.
Pierre Hamon
Since the 1980s, as a recorder player, in the development of early music in France, particularly medieval music (member of the Gilles Binchois ensemble, founder and co-director of Alla Francesca until 2019, initiator of critically acclaimed projects and recordings dedicated to the works of Guillaume de Machaut...),
Pierre Hamon has maintained a close and ongoing collaboration with Jordi Savall since 1995. To deepen his exploration of early music, he took a keen interest in the traditional music of Europe and then of other cultures. In 1998, he became a disciple of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, a grand master of Hindustani music and the Bansuri flute; his perpetual search for the fundamental gestures and sounds of humanity then led him to the fascinating world of pre-Columbian flutes and civilizations and Native American traditions, in connection with nature and birdsong. He has performed on every continent and in the world’s greatest concert halls, from the Berlin Philharmonie to Carnegie Hall in New York...
Many of his recordings have been acclaimed and awarded by international critics (Diapason d’Or of the Year, nomination for the Victoires de la Musique...).
In 1994, he was invited to serve as a professor for the creation of France’s first recorder class at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, a position he held until 2023. He is regularly invited to give masterclasses by leading early music institutions, such as the Scola Cantorum Basiliensis, the H.E.M. in Geneva, the conservatories in Amsterdam and Vienna, and the Royal College of Music in London...
He is the composer and arranger of the original music for the animated film PACHAMAMA (2018), nominated for a César Award in 2019, as well as for the animated short film “Jehanne” by Atam Rasho. More recently, he has been invited as a composer to work on several documentaries, including “L’École de tous les possibles” by Anne Gautier.
