Formed in 2018, Grand Siècle are a young historical performance ensemble based in the United Kingdom with a particular passion for the French Baroque repertoire. They largely met during their studies in the historical performance department of the Royal College of Music where they developed a love of playing early chamber music together. Madeline Claire de Berrié joined in 2018 after a discovery of a shared love of the French Airs de Cour and Margueritte Wasserman joined in 2020, after accompanying Grand Siècle on tour to the South of France.
Their passion for well-informed performance and respect for the integrity of primary sources, along with a shared musical understanding, brought them together. As an ensemble they are motivated to explore unknown or lesser-known repertoire and to create vital and exciting performances and recordings which bring the music to a wider audience. They present programmes which are dramatic, thematic and include hidden treasures of the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
They are fortunate to have continued affiliation with the Handel & Hendrix House, London and have performed concerts at Handel House, and Holy Trinity Church, South Kensington. They were selected to compete in the semi-finals of the Göttingen Händel Competition but unfortunately the competition was cancelled due to Covid-19. In the autumn of 2020, they were also chosen to take part in Académie Gli Incogniti to receive coaching from Amandine Beyer, Olivier Fourés, Thibault Amanieu and Noëlle Spieth which enabled them to perform at the Théâtre des Quatre Saisons de Gradignan and the Théâtre de la Coupe d’Or de Rochefort in the South of France.