Les Voix Humaines

Les Voix humaines, the viol duo, has thrilled audiences worldwide with dashing performances of early and contemporary music for three decades. Susie Napper and Margaret Little’s musical complicity has been compared to the skill of two trapeze artists or the telepathic communion of a pair of jazz saxophonists!

"In the beginning, our tiny kids played with their dolls while we played our viols, experimenting with fascinating new repertoire, tinkering with Sainte-Colombe and Couperin. As our kids grew, so did our repertoire and our unique style of playing. Still arguing, persuading, negotiating like kids, we continue to develop, finding or creating new repertoire and performing with as much intensity as ever! "

They are renowned for their spectacular arrangements of a wide variety of music for two viols, following in the baroque tradition of "covering" music originally composed for other instruments and adapting it for viols. Knowing that recycling music was a normal practice in the baroque era, they arranged a pile of their favourite baroque repertoire for themselves. As Bach arranged Vivaldi, they could attempt to arrange Dowland, Rameau, Couperin, Marais, Bach etc!

The duo is often joined by colleagues (Bart and Wieland Kuijken, Charles Daniels, Eric Milnes, Skip Sempe, David Greenberg and Nigel North), who share the joy of experimentation and the discovery of new and unusual repertoire for two viols with other instruments or voice.

Over the past three decades the duo has toured the world (North America, Europe, the Baltic, Far East, Australia and New Zealand), and made over forty recordings on the ATMA Classique label (Diapason d’Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique, Repertoire-Classica 10, Goldberg 5, Classics Today 10/10). Their marathon recording of the complete Concerts a deux violes ésgales by Jean de Sainte-Colombe is a world première. Mélisande Corriveau and Felix Deak join the duo regularly to form Les Voix humaines Consort of Viols. Winner of a 2018 Opus Prize, the Consort has recorded several albums and has toured internationally.