I Musici presents
La Jeune Fille et l’Amour

An intimate musical tale where love reveals its promises, its dizzying highs, and its wounds

February 4, 2026

I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra, one of the city’s leading chamber ensembles, will present La Jeune Fille et l’Amour on Thursday, February 12 at 5:30 p.m. Conceived as an intimate contemporary tale in which music and theatre respond to one another to explore the dizzying experience of love, this concert‑performance will follow the journey of a young woman who dreams of love, discovers its intoxication, but also the price it demands.

Led by violist Elvira Misbakhova, together with actors Alina Ichmouratov and Clara Prévost, the concert offers a dialogue between music and texts from past and present, exploring how love can inspire and transform. The musical programme brings together romantic works, including Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, Mirage by Julie Thériault, Edward Elgar’s Salut d’amour, as well as a version for viola and string orchestra by Quebec composer François Vallières of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, all presented without intermission in an intimate, immersive atmosphere at Espace JAX in the heart of downtown Montréal.

Led by violist Elvira Misbakhova, the concert offers a dialogue between music and texts from past and present, exploring how love can inspire and transform.

Through text and performance, the figure of the young girl is never fixed; she will move from innocence to desire, from trust to disillusion, and finally toward a quiet kind of clarity. Without moralizing, the narration asks a simple, universal question – what are we prepared to give, or to let go of, to be loved? – and leaves the audience to complete the story with their own experience. On stage, the performers will deliberately blur the boundaries between concert and theatre: words will answer the music, the music will extend the words, and the understated staging will favour closeness with the audience, so that we witness less a show “about” love than a shared emotional journey.

The compact format – about one hour without intermission – will heighten the sense of immersion and reflect I Musici’s new approach, which favours late‑afternoon concerts that are accessible yet artistically ambitious, where scenography and storytelling matter as much as the musical programme. Music will remain the driving force of the journey: the I Musici strings, supported by a richly coloured viola solo, will give voice to a wide range of emotions, from the almost dancing lightness of first infatuations to the fervour of grand declarations, all the way to the heavy silences that follow breakups and disillusionment; in certain exquisitely delicate passages, time will seem to stand still, as though the young girl were holding her breath before making a decisive choice.

Photo: Julia Marois

La Jeune Fille et l’Amour rejects ready‑made endings and romantic clichés, offering instead a mosaic of moments, moods, and possible memories in which love appears in turn as promise, vertigo, refuge, and challenge. For I Musici de Montréal, this creation is part of a broader artistic vision that revisits universal themes through a transdisciplinary approach, bringing together the string repertoire and the living voice of theatre; after exploring eternal youth and the ensemble’s origins, La Jeune Fille et l’Amour turns to a pivotal moment in life, when early choices in love leave a lasting mark.

Without ever becoming didactic, the show serves as a welcoming gateway to classical music for curious listeners, including those less familiar with the concert hall. The intimacy of the venue, the concise format, and the clarity of the narrative thread foster a relaxed yet attentive listening environment, giving the impression of living through a story rather than simply attending a programme. Ultimately, La Jeune Fille et l’Amour is not a prescriptive fable about what we ought to do, but an invitation to remember our first impulses, our illusions, the wounds that shaped us, and the new desires we continue to invent, as the meeting of I Musici de Montréal’s music and theatre paints a sensitive, nuanced portrait of that fragile moment when love begins – and, sometimes, begins again.

This poetic event at Espace JAX in Montréal on Thursday, February 12, 2026, at 5:30 pm. is part of I Musici’s 2025–2026 season, presented under the theme Origins. It is a perfect outing in the lead‑up to Valentine’s Day, with solidarity pricing starting at $25, in keeping with I Musici de Montréal’s commitment to accessibility.

More information on La Jeune Fille et l’Amour

Feature image : Elvira Misbakhova, courtesy of l’Orchestre de chambre I Musici de Montréal

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