Philippe Favette
Belgium
Waterloo
LES PASTOUREAUX – Little Singers of Waterloo (Belgium)
Director : Philippe Favette
The Pastoureaux have long been part of the choral landscape in Belgium and in Waterloo in particular. In 2024, they will celebrate their fiftieth anniversary.
At the beginning, it was simply a question of bringing a little comfort to the sick in a hospital, but quickly the small group of children grew and became a choir which took the name “Les Pastoureaux” in reference to the first children who have approached the nursery. The fame helping they traveled the paths and roads and stopped to sing in very different places. From the small country church to the Cathedral, from the parish circle to the great hall of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, from a reception center for the disabled to the Royal Palace, they brought the joy of singing everywhere.
Since 1974, the Pastoureaux have given many concerts all over Belgium and Europe, but also in the USA, Canada, Japan, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina. Recently, the Pastoureaux participated in the “World Peace Choral Festival” in Vienna (2014) and the “European Mozart Ways” in Salzburg (2016) and represented Belgium at the Eurovision des Chœurs in Latvia (2017).
They are regularly guests of various festivals in Belgium and in particular with symphony orchestras which need a children’s choir for their programming. In 2018, they took part in a major international production dedicated to Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, including a concert at the Berlin Philharmonic.
Their numerous recordings are to be discovered, in particular their “authentic” version of Fauré’s Requiem, and the latest live CD featuring works by Vivaldi.