Annie Lavoisier

Annie Lavoisier was born in Reims and began her musical studies at the age of six. She studied in Paris with Francis Pierre, who introduced her to contemporary and orchestral repertoire. She subsequently met the great French harpist Pierre Jamet, then 87 years old, and was one of his very last students. Annie Lavoisier is a laureate of major international competitions (Gargilesse (FR), Israel, Munich, Geneva) and she also received the Special Prize for the best interpretation of a contemporary work. A solo harpist with the Belgian National Orchestra since the age of 20, she joined Oxalys in 1995 and has been a member of the contemporary music ensemble Ictus since 1996. Annie Lavoisier founded the harp class at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, after which she became a harp teacher at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles in 2005. Her research into the connections between the pedal harp and the early harps led her to the triple harp (arpa doppia) in 2010, with which she has explored the Renaissance and Baroque repertoire.

Her 20-year practice of choral singing has led her to consider ways to make classical music accessible to all: not only does she regularly take part in various educational projects in conjunction with literature, poetry, fairy tales, actors, clowns, and so on, but she has also composed and performed music for short animated films, documentaries and puppet theatre. Annie Lavoisier has been associated with the French project ‘Popharpe, harpes en carton’ since 2018; this project aims to make the instrument accessible to all thanks to workshops in which participants build their own cardboard harp. She also took up oil painting in 2012, with the intention of making her musical visions visible.