On the evening of May 9, the Center for Early Music of Antonine University offered to its audience a peaceful throwback to the 17th and 18th centuries thanks to three talented musicians. Jana Semaan was on the cello, Lydia Pacevicius on the recorder, and Anna Scholl on the harpsichord. The trio interpreted the masterpieces of great minds such as Castello, Van Eyck, Couperin, and Bach, plunging the attendees into the baroque music era. This sampling of European music dating from two hundred years ago was a beautiful tribute to multiculturalism; coming from a Lebanese-French-German band.
The trio had previously given a masterclass to some students and shared with them on this night the pleasure of playing some of the greatest pieces of all times.
What do we know about this all-female trio?
French flutist Lydia Pacevicius studied the recorder at the "Schola Cantorum Basiliensis", the world-renowned university for early music based in Switzerland. She then moved to Lyon to attend Pierre Hamon's class at the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse, before returning to Basel to embark on a postgraduate degree in medieval music with Corina Marti.

As for German organist Anna Scholl, she pursued her bachelor's degree in organ, church music, and harpsichord at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Paolo Crivellaro. In 2014, she joined the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis where she obtained her master's degree with distinction. This talented musician was also awarded the "Hans-Balmer-Preis" in 2014 and 2016. In 2017, she was appointed artistic director of the concert series at the "Historical Organs" of Altenbruch (Klapmeyer organ, 1730) and Lüdingworth (Wilde/Schnitger organ, 1598/1682).

Last but not least, here is the story of Lebanese musician Jana Semaan, whose vocation arose at the age of eight. After high school, the artist flew to Germany where she graduated with the highest distinction, in 2014, from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. She then toured with an orchestra and as a chamber musician under the baton of Daniel Barenboim and others. In 2016, after completing her master’s degree in Early Music and Baroque Cello, Jana Semaan returned to Lebanon and founded, in 2018, the Center for Early Music at Antonine University.