In Geneva, Les Impertinences go from Biber to Beyoncé

On 5 November at La Cité Bleue in Geneva, the young ensemble Les Impertinences presents Remix, a new creation in which seventeenth-century music moves freely alongside Mexican cumbia, Venezuelan joropo, metal, Beyoncé and Shakira. A way of setting Baroque music against the sounds that have personally shaped each of its eight performers.

Under the musical direction of Venezuelan violinist Pablo Agudo López, Remix does not simply place genres side by side: a piece by Biber may lead into a cumbia; the joropo Agudo López learnt from his father may encounter Helloween; while Beyoncé and Shakira’s “Beautiful Liar” sits alongside Henry Du Mont or Marin Marais. The programme also brings together Uccellini, Farina, Silvio Rodríguez and a work by Peruvian guitarist Sergio Valdeos.

This mixture draws directly on the musicians’ own backgrounds, with members coming from countries including Venezuela, Mexico, Peru and Argentina. A central figure in the production is the andariego, the Andean traveller and musician, who becomes a metaphor for melodies, memories and traditions transformed as they move from one territory to another.

The music extends onto the stage through drawings by Andrea Wainer, set design by Alexandra Lapierre and staging by Jeanne Kleinman: the instrumentalists play, move, tell stories and dance within a constantly changing space. Following their first album, Bestiario, released in April 2026 and devoted to seventeenth-century instrumental experimentation, Les Impertinences continue to explore Baroque music less as a fixed heritage than as material to be set in motion again.