Duo Lumie – Raúl Cicuéndez

Lucien Semail on piano and Aimie Marfaing on cello make up the duo Lumie. This Franco-Belgian duo formed at the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels, where both musicians obtained their master’s degrees in performance and teaching, as well as their teaching qualifications. United by a desire to share music and reach a wide audience, they have created numerous projects, such as a concert dedicated to the works of female composers (to raise public awareness of these forgotten artists), a themed concert focusing on French music, featuring works from different periods to showcase the expressive richness of this repertoire, as well as a show aimed at younger audiences, the musical tale ‘Itinéraire d’une plume’. Together, they founded the Escales Musicales association to make music and culture accessible to everyone.

Spanish saxophonist. Raúl Cicuéndez began his training at the age of 8 and, at 14, enrolled at the Alcázar de San Juan-Campo de Criptana Professional Conservatory of Music. During this time, he won the “Intercentros Melómano” Competition in the Castilla-La Mancha regional round. At the age of 19, he joined the saxophone class at the Basque Country Conservatoire “Musikene” under the tutelage of Eric Devallon, Tomás Jerez, Antonio Felipe Belijar and Miguel Ángel Lorente. In 2015, he began his master’s degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels with Alain Crepin and Simon Diricq. In 2017, he was a prize-winner at the “International Saxophone Competition” in L’Haÿ-les-Roses (Paris) and in 2019, he won the “Play Right+” and “Midis d’Arts²” prizes at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Mons. He has had the pleasure of sharing his music with various ensembles in many countries around the world, notably in Spain, Japan, France, Ukraine and Belgium. In Belgium, for example, he performed the opening concert of the “Midis d’Arts²” festival at the Arsonic venue in Mons; he took part in the ‘Artonov’ festival at the Bozar (Brussels) and the ‘Musiq3’ festival at Studio 1 in Flagey (Brussels), and he also had the honour of performing a concert for Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of Belgium. He is currently a tenured saxophone teacher at the Academies of Brussels City and Schaerbeek.