Artist Profiles

Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has established himself as one of the major singers in the international musical world as confirmed by the French Victoires de la Musique (“Revelation Artiste Lyrique” in 2004, “Artiste lyrique de l’année” in 2007 and 2010) and at the Echo Klassik Awards in Germany in 2008 in Munich (Singer of the Year), in 2009 in Dresden (with L’Arpeggiata), and again in 2016 in Berlin.

An impressive mastery of vocal technique allows performances full of nuance and vocal acrobatics. Philippe Jaroussky’s vast repertoire of the Baroque era ranges from the refinements of the Italian Seicento with Monteverdi, Sances, and Rossi, to the staggering brilliance of Handel and Vivaldi, the latter recently being one of his most performed composers. Philippe is also tirelessly at the forefront of musical research and made strong contributions to the discovery—or rediscovery—of composers such as Caldara, Porpora, Steffani, Telemann, and Johann Christian Bach.

Lately, he has also explored the very different repertoire of French melodies accompanied by pianist Jérôme Ducros. He has recently proposed his own vision of Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Été with performances at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid and at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Increasingly captivated by contemporary works, Jaroussky performed a song cycle composed by Marc-André Dalbavie from the sonnets of Louise Labé. He premiered Kaija Saariaho’s opera Only the Sound Remains, specifically written for his voice, at Nederlande Opera Ballet in Amsterdam in March 2016.

Philippe Jaroussky has had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the best Baroque ensembles. He has performed to high acclaim in the most prestigious festivals and concert halls around the world.

In 2002, he founded Ensemble Artaserse, which currently performs throughout Europe and across the globe.

In January 2017, Philippe inaugurated the new Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. He was invited as its first artist in residence. The 2019–2020 season marked the twentieth anniversary of his career with a number of major events such as the inclusion of his statue at the Musée Grévin in Paris, the publication of the biographical book Seule compte la musique, and the release of the three-CD anthology Passion.

March 2021 saw Philippe Jaroussky’s début as a conductor at the head of his Artaserse ensemble with the production of Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio Il primo omicidio. This

program was performed at venues including the Salzburg Festival and Opéra de Montpellier, which will become the residence of Philippe and Artaserse for the next three seasons.

He has continued as a conductor in 2022, with numerous concerts in Paris, Lyon, Montpellier, Budapest, and at the Epau and Halle Festivals.

At the end of May and beginning of June 2022, in Paris and Montpellier, Philippe conducted his first opera from the pit, Handel’s Giulio Cesare, with a superlative cast of singers including Sabine Devieilhe, Gaëlle Arquez, Franco Fagioli, Carlo Vistoli, and Lucile Richardot.

During the 2022–2023 season, Philippe conducts the stage production of Sartorio’s Orfeo at Opéra de Montpellier. He performs the role of Ruggiero in a production of Handel’s Alcina alongside Cecilia Bartoli in Monte Carlo. In addition, Philippe is in recital across the Atlantic with guitarist Thibaut Garcia at the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato and at Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and with Les Violons du Roy and MarieNicole Lemieux in Montreal and Quebec City. He joins Artaserse for concerts in Boston, San Diego, and Toronto, and performs with L’Arpeggiata and Christina Pluhar at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Philippe Jaroussky has been an exclusive artist with Erato/Warner Classics for many years and has received numerous awards for his outstanding discography.

In March 2017, a project dear to his heart came to fruition: the Academy Philippe Jaroussky. In its first five years, the Academy has supported young musicians suffering from cultural isolation, through original, extensive, and demanding teaching.

In 2019, Philippe Jaroussky was appointed Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. n Julien Chauvin was attracted at an early age by the Baroque revolution and the new wave of historically informed performance practice using period instruments and moved to the Netherlands to train at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Vera Beths, who founded L’Archibudelli with Anner Bylsma.

In 2003, he was a prizewinner at the International Early Music competition in Bruges. Since then he has performed as a soloist in South America, South Africa, and Georgia, while at the same time playing in the leading European Baroque ensembles, before founding in 2005 Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, which he directed jointly with Jérémie Rhorer for ten years.

Realizing his desire to bring back to life a celebrated ensemble of the eighteenth century, in 2015 he formed a new orchestra, Le Concert de la Loge. The ambitions of this modern recreation have been demonstrated by its exploration of forgotten works from the French orchestral and vocal-operatic repertory and concert formats encouraging spontaneous and imaginative reactions from the audience.

In parallel with this, he continues his collaboration with the Quatuor Cambini-Paris, formed in 2007, with which he performs the string quartets of Jadin, David, Gouvy, Mozart, Gounod, and Haydn.

Julien Chauvin has also conducted operatic productions such as Era la notte staged by Juliette Deschamps with Anna Caterina Antonacci, Lemoyne’s Phèdre and Isouard’s Cendrillon staged by Marc Paquien for the Palazzetto Bru Zane, Haydn’s Armida directed by Mariame Clément, and Sacchini’s Chimène, ou Le Cid staged by Sandrine Anglade.

Continuing to investigate the question of direction in the eighteenth-century opera, he recently directed Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail from the violin in a production by Christophe Rulhes.

He has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras and ensembles including the Esterházy Hofkapelle, the Orchestre Régional d’Avignon-Provence, the Orchestre national de Metz, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Limoges, the Orkiestra Historyczna of Katowice, the Folger Consort

in Washington D.C., Les Violons du Roy, the Kammerorchester Basel, and the GürzenichOrchester Köln.

Julien Chauvin’s discography includes concertante works by Haydn, Beethoven, and Berlioz for the Eloquentia and AmbroisieNaïve labels. With his ensemble Le Concert de la Loge, he recorded the Haydn’s complete “Paris” Symphonies, which he compared with other works created in Paris in the 1780s. Passionate about the rediscovery of forgotten French repertoire, he recorded the disc Si j’ai aimé with Sandrine Piau for the Alpha label. As a soloist, he recorded in 2020 an album of violin concertos for the Vivaldi Edition of the Naïve label which was awarded a Diapason d’Or.

He regularly appears in recital with Alain Planès, Christophe Coin, Andreas Staier, JeanFrançois Heisser, Justin Taylor, and Olivier Baumont. He and Baumont recorded the disc À Madame at the Château de Versailles.

In addition to his concert activities, Julien Chauvin also devotes himself to teaching in orchestral sessions or masterclasses at the Conservatoires Nationaux de Musique et de Danse of both Paris and Lyon, the École Normale de Paris, the Opéra national de Paris Academy, and the Orchestre Français des Jeunes. n In January 2015, violinist Julien Chauvin founded a new period-instrument orchestra with the ambition of reviving an essential component of French musical history: the Concert de la Loge Olympique.

That orchestra, founded in 1783 by the Comte d’Ogny, was then considered one of the finest in Europe and has remained famous for commissioning the “Paris” Symphonies of Joseph Haydn. At that time, a substantial majority of musicians were Freemasons, and many concert associations were linked to Masonic Lodges such as the Loge Olympique de la Parfaite Estime.

The modern, flexibly sized ensemble presents chamber, symphonic, and vocal-operatic programs directed from the violin or the baton and champions a wide repertory ranging from the Baroque era to the early twentieth century.

The aim of this recreation project is also to explore new forms of concerts, harking back to the spontaneity of late-eighteenth-century practice, which intermingled different genres and artists in a single program, and to establish links with other artistic disciplines.

Since it was founded, the ensemble has toured many venues with operas including Haydn’s Armida directed by Mariame Clément, Sacchini’s Chimène, ou Le Cid directed by Sandrine Anglade, Lemoyne’s Phèdre and Isouard’s Cendrillon staged by Marc Paquien for the Palazzetto Bru Zane, and Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail staged by Christophe Rulhes. It also enjoys regular collaborations with such renowned soloists as Karina Gauvin, Sandrine Piau, Philippe Jaroussky, and Justin Taylor.

On disc, the orchestra has recorded six volumes of Haydn’s complete “Paris” Symphonies for the Aparté label with works from the same period performed at the Concert de la Loge Olympique. In addition, the ensemble has devoted itself to rediscovering other repertoires: the French melodies orchestrated in Si j’ai aimé with Sandrine Piau on the Alpha label, the Symphonies de Salons for Aparté, and violin concerti with the release in 2020 of the 63rd volume of the Vivaldi Edition on the Naïve label, Concerti per violino III: ‘Il teatro’.

In 2021, Le Concert de la Loge began a new collaboration with the Alpha label around Mozart’s last three symphonies.

Its recordings have received critical acclaim, earning such distinctions as the Diamant d’Opéra Magazine, Choc de Classica, Sélection Le Monde, ffff Télérama, and the Grand Prix du Disque Charles Cros.

Since the French National Olympic and Sports Committee opposed the ensemble’s use of the adjective “Olympic,” it was forced to truncate its historical name and adopt the designation “Le Concert de la Loge” in June 2016. n