ALEKSI BARRIÈRE (b. 1989), artistic director of the French collective La Chambre aux échos, is a Finnish-French director, dramaturge and author. Productions he has directed in Europe, the USA and Japan have been acclaimed for their intercultural and inter-art approach and for addressing societal topics.

Barrière’s productions, working among others with conductor Clément Mao-Takacs, have been inspired by viewing 20th-century works in a new light (e.g. the war cantatas of Hanns Eisler in 2015, vocal music by Berio and Cage in 2017) and by collaboration with living composers (e.g. Kaija Saariaho’s La Passio de Simone and Only the Sound Remains). The music theatre work Violences, created jointly with composer Juha T. Koskinen (Finnish National Opera and Ballet, Almi Hall 2019) was noted by FMQ magazine as one of the most significant events not only of the Musica Nova festival but of the entire year.

Barrière has delivered multiple librettos for composers such as Kaija Saariaho, Juha T. Koskinen and Diana Syrse, and he is currently developing librettos for composers Outi Tarkiainen, Sebastian Fagerlund and Tomás Bordalejo. His most recent productions to be performed in Finland were the world premiere of Between at Almi Hall at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet (writer and director) and Sotilas Fatzerin Tarina [The Tale of Private Fatzer] (writer and director) and La Passion de Simone (director) at the Music Centre in Helsinki, all in autumn 2022. In summer 2023, he directed a new production of the church opera Curlew River by Benjamin Britten for the Organ Night and Aria festival in Espoo, Finland.