Les Arts Florissants Announces 2014-15 Season Highlights

William Christie's internationally acclaimed Baroque music ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, today announced highlights of its 37th season, encompassing more than 70 performances in approximately 35 venues, two international tours, the 7th edition of the young singers Academy Le Jardin des Voix- this season offering the musical theme of In an Italian Garden- and four new recordings on its own newly created label, Les Éditions Arts Florissants.

North American Tour and Le Jardin des Voix
Les Arts Florissants begins its North American tour on April 23, 2015 at New York's Lincoln Center, featuring the Orchestra of Les Arts Florissants and six up-and-coming vocal soloists from Le Jardin des Voix, the Academy for young singers launched in 2002 by the Ensemble, and presented every two years. After training at the Academy with top professionals in the Baroque arena, the vocalists demonstrate their mastery of the repertoire in performances at major concert halls around the world. Le Jardin des Voix is dedicated to carefully selecting works that show each individual voice to its best advantage, giving audience members the opportunity to catch tomorrow's vocal stars performing hidden gems of the Baroque repertoire. The soloists for this 7th edition of Le Jardin des Voix were chosen from more than 165 candidates representing approximately 20 countries. They are soprano Lucía Martin-Cartón (Spain), mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre (France), countertenor Carlo Vistoli (Italy), tenor Nicholas Scott (United Kingdom), baritone Renato Dolcini (Italy), and bass John Taylor Ward (United States). The New York performance will be the last concert of the Academy's 2015 tour, which will take the young singers to Caen and Paris (France), Hong Kong, Australia, and Russia.

The first half of Le Jardin des Voix's 2015 concert program, titled Un jardin à l'Italienne (In an Italian Garden), will showcase madrigals and passionate Italian arias from Stradella, Vivaldi, and Handel, while the second half will present a play within a play to music by Cimorosa, Galuppi, and Piccini. William Christie will conduct the Orchestra of Les Arts Florissants and co-direct the Academy with Paul Agnew, in this semi-staged concert by Sophie Daneman and Paul Agnew.

The North American tour continues to six more cities in Canada and the U.S.; Montreal (April 25), Quebec City (April 26), Miami (April 29), Berkeley (May 1), Santa Barbara (May 5), and Los Angeles' Disney Hall on May 6, with another program-Airs sérieux et à boire (Serious airs and drinking songs). Relished by listeners in Grand Siècle drawing rooms, these songs of love, loss, and licentiousness belong to a genre known as air de cour. The simple music dates back to the 17th century and was meant to be sung by laborers and ladies maids alike. Michel Lambert-Lully's father-in-law-was one of the form's most illustrious champions and much of his work will be heard in these concerts, along with songs by Couperin, Charpentier, Joseph Chabanceau de la Barre, and the rarely-heard Honoré d'Ambruys. A new disc of the program will be released on the label Les Éditions Arts Florissants in early 2015.

South and Central America Tour
Before coming to North America, Les Arts Florissants will undertake a tour of South and Central America, traveling to six cities from the Museu de Arte in Sao Paolo and the Cidade das Artes in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), to the Teatro Municipal in Santiago (Chile) and the Teatro Mayor Bogota (Columbia), the Iglesia de la Valenciana in Guanajuato (Mexico) and the prestigious Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. From October 14 through 26, the Ensemble will present l'Air français, un art intime, a program of 17th and 18th century vocal music by Campra, Couperin, Leroux, Bernier, and Marais. Soprano Élodie Fonnard and bass Marc Mauillon, both acclaimed Jardin des Voix laureates, are the soloists, William Christie will direct from the harpsichord, with Florence Malgoire and Catherine Girard (violins), Myriam Rignol (viola da gamba) and Thomas Dunford (archluth).

Les Fêtes vénitiennes
From January 26 - February 2, 2015, William Christie will lead the Orchestra and Choir of Les Arts Florissants in André Campra's cleverly entertaining opera-ballet, Les Fêtes vénitiennes at the Paris Opéra Comique. First premiered at the Académie royale de Musique in 1710, the wildly successful performance, with its lively combination of song, dance, and witty intrigue, marked the rise of the opera-ballet form to prominence. This new production, commissioned by Les Arts Florissants and Paris Opéra Comique, is staged by Robert Carsen and choreographed by Ed Wubbe. The performance, featuring the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam; sopranos Emmanuelle De Negri, Élodie Fonnard, and Rachel Redmond; mezzo-soprano Emilie Renard, tenor Cyril Auvity, high tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen, baritone Marc Mauillon, and bass François Lis will move on to the théâtre de Caen on April 1 and 2.

Celebrating Rameau
Les Arts Florissants will also continue its tribute to the 250th anniversary of Jean-Philippe Rameau's death in 2014 by taking two special programs on tours in Europe. In the first program?which will tour in France in October?Christie will conduct five remarkable soloists and the Choir and Orchestra in Grand Motets by Rameau and Mondonville. The 17th century grand motet is the supreme example of French sacred music, and was one of three pieces of music heard by the King's court at daily religious services. The soloists?all of whom possess the high technical mastery required by this genre situated between opera and introspection?include high tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen, tenor Cyril Auvity, baritone Marc Mauillon, bass Cyril Costanzo, and sopranos Rachel Redmond and Katherine Watson.

In November, a second program will tour in Luxemburg, Moscow, and London, as well as Paris and Dijon. Titled Rameau, Maître à Danser, it will present two of the composer's choreographed one-act ballets in costume: La Naissance d'Osiris-commissioned to celebrate the birth of the future Louis XVI and premiered at Fountainebleu's royal court in 1754-and Daphnis et Églé, a work about two lovers meant to entertain the court's shooting parties. William Christie will conduct the ballets with staging by Sophie Daneman, choreography by Françoise Denieau, costumes by Alain Blanchot, and lighting by Christophe Naillet. Vocalists feature sopranos Élodie Fonnard and Magali Léger; high tenors Reinoud Van Mechelen and Sean Clayton; and basses Arnaud Richard and Pierre Bessière; with dancers Robert Le Nuz, Nathalie Adam, Andrea Miltnerova, Anne-Sophie Ott, Bruno Benne, Pierre-François Dolle, Arthur Zakirov, Marc Barret, and Gilles Poirier.

Festival Dans Les Jardins de William Christie
The fourth edition of the festival Dans Les Jardins de William Christie will take place onAugust 22 - 29, 2015. Located in the village of Thiré in the Vendée region of France, this summer event takes place in the private gardens Christie created as a personal retreat over the course of some 30 years. The garden landscape offers different styles, including a formal Baroque courtyard and a whimsical topiary theater, designed as living stages for performance. He launched the Festival in 2012 as a set of musical encounters that bring together Les Arts Florissants, Christie's students from The Juilliard School in New York, Arts Flo Juniors and laureates of Le Jardin des Voix for concerts and promenades in the lush greenery of his gardens. Additional details of the 2015 edition will be available later in the season.

Recordings
Other activities include the release of an unprecedented four recordings in one season on Les Arts Florissants' new in-house label, Les Éditions Arts Florissants. Underscoring the Ensemble's exploration of the complete Monteverdi madrigals, the recordings Mantova (IV, V, VI) and Cremona (I,II, III) will be released respectively in November 2014 and March 2015, and offer excerpts from Books I through VI of the composer's works, led by Les Arts Florissants' associate musical director Paul Agnew. The Ensemble will complete its survey of the madrigal series by performing books VI and VIII in May 2015 in Europe.

A third disc in the 2014-15 season will feature William Christie leading Les Arts Florissants in Handel's homage to the wife of George II, Music for Queen Caroline, to be released in November 2014. The release will be followed by a disc of Airs sérieux et à boire, a program from the Ensemble's North American tour described above, to be released in March 2015.

Each of the four recordings will feature a short story commissioned by Les Arts Florissants included with the booklet and the CDs. American writer Douglas Kennedy provided the story for Music for Queen Caroline, and French author René de Ceccatty wrote the stories for the Monteverdi CDs. Four unique videos available on www.artsflomedia.com will also complement the Mantova recording.

Additional season highlights
As part of the grand opening weekend of La Philharmonie de Paris, the new concert hall designed by Jean Nouvel, the Ensemble will perform Charpentier's Te Deum, Mondonville'sIn exitu Israel, and Rameau's Les Sauvages (from Les Indes Galantes) on January 16. This concert will also mark the beginning of a collaboration for Les Arts Florissants with La Philharmonie de Paris, as one of the few orchestras that will have the official status of Associate Ensemble. William Christie will conduct the Choir and Orchestra, and guest soloists will be soprano Danielle de Niese, tenor Marcel Beekman, baritone Elliot Madore, and basse-baritone Laurent Naouri.

The 2014-15 season will also feature the Choir of Les Arts Florissants in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the National Theatre of Bahrain, on December 5 and 7, 2014, conducted by Andreas Spering, in a Festival d'Aix-en-Provence production directed by Richard Brunel.

Les Arts Florissants will also offer Music at Versailles, a day with the Sun King, a performance at the Château de Versailles on June 25 and 26, 2015, marking the 300th anniversary of the death of Louis XIV, known as the Sun King. As France's longest reigning king and a great lover of the arts, he was an accomplished musician and dancer who provided the impetus for three generations of musicians and drew Europe's artistic attention on Versailles. The numerous festivities of unrivaled magnificence that entertained the court were always accompanied by music as were the monarch's intimate and daily rituals. With the Orchestra, Choir and soloists, as well as an actor and a dancer, this theatrical concert?including works by Lully, Charpentier, Campra, Lambert, Couperin and Marais?will revive the glory of a day in music at the Court of Louis XIV.

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