Le Balcon

Antoin Herrera-López Kessel is a French-Cuban bass-baritone passionate about contemporary music and modern repertoires. He collaborates closely with the ensemble Le Balcon, under the direction of Maxime Pascal, in major productions such as Karlheinz Stockhausen's operas and Olivier Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. He regularly joins the ensemble for major artistic projects.

A member of the Equilibrium Young Artists initiative led by Barbara Hannigan, he has performed works by Stravinsky, Mozart, and Petrassi under her direction, affirming his commitment to a repertoire rich in musical excellence and human depth.

Trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon, the Musik-Akademie de Bâle, and the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland, he combines a solid musical education with a deep appreciation of contemporary performance issues. He is currently developing a doctoral research project at the CNSMD in Paris on the interpretation of modern and contemporary music by Cuban composers, in close collaboration with Leo Brouwer and Louis Franz Aguirre. His thesis, entitled "The interpretation through gesture of modern and contemporary music by Cuban composers: a decolonial approach", examines interpretation practices through a corporeal, political and decentralized reading, placing the musical gesture at the heart of the artistic process.