A true “Woman Orchestra”, Inès Halimi is a multi-talented artist: composer, singer, pianist, conductor, author, and teacher. As artistic director of the Compagnie …Sans Oublier…, she creates and produces multidisciplinary shows combining music, theater, literature, dance, painting, and cinema.

Born in Paris in 1993, she has had an unusual career path, studying classical music and jazz from childhood onwards, and has developed a unique universe, rich in sounds, influences, and diverse and complementary aesthetics.

Her lifelong passion?
Singing, writing notes and words, playing, dancing, reading, observing, creating…

During her final year of studies at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in 2018, she created the Compagnie … Sans Oublier…, within which she developed her poetic, musical, and dramaturgical language, collaborating with artists she admires and creating multidisciplinary shows: Giacometti ou le Jeu des Mots (2019), Mon père sur mes épaules (2020), Rencontres (2022). In 2023, she broke out of her usual mold by directing a short film entitled Dialogues hébraïques. For this project, she collaborated with a film director while retaining artistic direction of the project: in the film, she acts, sings, and dances alongside renowned dancer Gabriel Arenas Ruiz, who had just retired from the Béjart-Ballet Lausanne.
In 2025, she created Prières, her new show in association with the Ellipsos Quartet: this fifth creation by the Company on the theme of “sacred and profane” is touring internationally for the 2025/2026 season.

In addition to her performances, she composes for internationally renowned artists such as Marina Viotti, Rolando Villazón, and the Ellipsos Quartet, as well as for prestigious institutions such as the Stiftung Mozarteum Festival in Salzburg (2024) and the Lausanne Opera (2020).

Her signature style?
Writing tailor-made songs for the artists who inspire her. Inès Halimi loves nothing more than immersing herself in the world, voice, and tone of the singer or musician she is writing for.

Here is a typical anecdote:
In September 2022, she happened to meet tenor Rolando Villazón on a train. He immediately fell in love with her music, and called her back a few hours after their meeting to commission a piece for tenor voice and piano based on a sonnet by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a poet he admires greatly. The composer immersed herself in the poetic world of this avant-garde 17th-century woman and composed the work in 48 hours: the melody Entre tus manos was created in a few weeks and then accompanied the tenor on his European tour in the fall.
At just 28 years old, the composer found herself performing in concert halls such as the Tonhalle in Zurich and the Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna.
In 2024, he commissioned her to write a cycle of melodies for the Stiftung Mozarteum Festival in Salzburg.

Winner of the Jan Michalski Foundation’s writing residency in winter 2023, she spent two months immersed in a “writer’s cabin” to complete Prières, combining musical and literary writing: the world premiere of the show took place in July 2025 at the Abbey Church of Romainmôtier (Switzerland), where she performed on stage -alongside the Ellipsos Quartet – as a singer, conductor, composer, and artistic director.

True to her convictions, she shares the stage with musicians from both classical and jazz backgrounds, such as the Ellipsos Quartet, pianist Jean-Philippe Clerc, pianist and composer Alix Logiaco, and double bassist and singer Louise Knobil.

On the educational side, Inès Halimi is increasingly involved with young audiences and has composed a piece entitled En te veillant as part of the “Concerts for Babies” series. This duet for violin and viola was commissioned by the Variations Musicales Festival of Neuchâtel in 2025.

During my studies, jazz musicians saw me as a “classical singer” and classical musicians saw me as a “jazz singer…”
Inès Halimi

*****

[Her academic background, in detail]

Inès Halimi is born in 1993 in Paris. Her grandfather, Paul Hadjaje, “alto super-solist” of Opéra de Paris, immersed her in the music very young. At the age of four, she starts to play piano and at seven she follows a cursus of musical studies at flexible hours at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional of Boulogne-Billancourt, in the class of Michèle Tedeschi. At fifteen she starts in-depth study of classical singing with Sophie Pondjiclis (mezzo-soprano), and simultaneously develops her jazz and improvisations qualities with Mila Lumbroso.

Following the Baccalaureate Literature-Music, Inès Halimi is admitted to the Haute Ecole de Musique of Lausanne (HEMU) for a Bachelor in Jazz Singing, in the class of Susanne Abbuehl, where she deepens her studies in improvisation and composition. Conducting studies of jazz and classical singing she is admitted in the Masters Program in Lyrical Interpretation in the department Classique of HEMU, in the class of Leontina Vaduva, and after Stephan Macleod. In parallel she pursues an intensive Theatrical Interpretation at the Atelier Lyrique of HEMU conducted by Marc Mayoraz. Inès Halimi holds also a Master in Vocal Pedagogy, in the class of Frédéric Gindraux. Since December 2017, and upon the advice and encouragement of Isabelle Aboulker, she has been working on musical composition with the French composer Yves Chauris.

As a singer, she was chosen by Patricia Petibon to take part in the second edition of her academy, Les Chants d’Ulysse, at the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud in April 2024.
Inès Halimi performs under direction of conductors such as Leonardo Garcià Alarcòn (soprano solo, in the oratorio Israel in Egypt of G. F Händel), Nir Kabaretti (role of Papagena, in Die Zauberflöte of W. A Mozart) at Jerusalem Opera Studio,
In a contemporary repertoire, she performs Music for 18 musicians of Steve Reich, under the direction of Emmanuel Séjourné, alongside Susanne Abbuehl and Lauren Newton.

In January 2024, Inès Halimi was one of four musicians selected to join Mathieu Herzog‘s class at the Rachmaninov Conservatory in Paris. For one year – with the support of the Sylvie Rusconi Foundation – she undergoes intensive conducting training with the French conductor.