A French Baroque Christmas with Ensemble Correspondances

In 1998, she joined the Chamber Choir of Namur (Centre d’Art Vocal & de Musique Ancienne – CAV&MA), where she built her career as a choral singer and soloist under the direction of renowned conductors such as M. Minkowski, S. Kuijken, J. Tubéry, J-C. Malgloire, G. Van Waas, F. Bernius, P. Dombrecht, P. Davin, Ph. Pierlot, and L. García Alarcón. She has performed with some of the best European Baroque ensembles: La Fenice (J. Tubéry), Les Agrémens (G. Van Waas), Il Fondamento (P. Dombrecht), Il Gardellino (M. Ponseele, Jan de Winne), Cappella Mediterranea (L. García Alarcón), Lauda Musica, La Grande Chapelle (A. Recasens), Les Muffatti, Correspondances (S. Daucé), and Vox Luminis (L. Meunier).

These collaborations have resulted in several recordings, including, for example, C.P.E. Bach: *Lukas Passion* with Il Fondamento, or Grétry: Céphale et Procris with Les Agrémens; Bach: Desire – Cantatas 32, 49 & 154 with Il Gardellino, as well as Falvetti: Il diluvio Universale or Nabucco with L. García Alarcón. Histoires Sacrées by Charpentier with Correspondances, Handel’s Dixit Dominus with Vox Luminis, and many others.

Caroline Weynants has sung at numerous festivals across Europe—the Ambronay Festival, the Beaune Baroque Opera Festival, the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, the Bourg-en-Bresse Festival, Lyon, Lessay, Sablé, La Chaise-Dieu, and Périgueux. In Belgium, she has performed at the Flanders and Wallonia festivals; she has also appeared in festivals and major venues in Spain, Italy, Germany, England, Canada, and the United States.

In the Mozart repertoire, he has performed Figaro, Papageno, Guglielmo, Leporello, and the Count in Le nozze di Figaro with companies including Opéra Éclaté. He has also appeared as Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Franck in Die Fledermaus, and the Baker in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town.

As a concert soloist, Lysandre has interpreted major works such as Mozart’s Requiem, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, and Dvořák’s Stabat Mater and Requiem.

Lysandre completed a master’s degree at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where he studied with Frédéric Gindraux, Morgane Fauchois-Prado, and Mary Olivon. He has also participated in masterclasses with renowned artists such as Véronique Gens, Iñaki Encina Oyon, Irène Kudela, and Alain Buet.

A passionate interpreter of art song and lieder, he regularly performs works by Ropartz, Ibert, Fauré, Duparc, Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, Vaughan Williams, and Gerald Finzi, and has received guidance from Anne Le Bozec, Philippe Biros, Susan Manoff, and Jeff Cohen.

The exceptional reconstruction of the score of Le Ballet Royal de la Nuit, the result of three years of research, allowed modern audiences to discover a major musical event of the seventeenth century, the unprecedented moment that inaugurated the reign of the Sun King. After the public and critical success of the CD-book released on harmonia mundi (Le Concert Royal de la Nuit, 2015), the ensemble returned to this extraordinary spectacle in 2017 with the théâtre de Caen, in a contemporary production by Francesca Lattuada combining elements of the circus and the dance, also given at the Opéra Royal de Versailles and at the Opéra de Dijon. This staged version has been published recently: an exceptional box set gathering the full music (27 additional dances) and the recording of the show.

With this ensemble, which he directs from the harpsichord or the organ, he now travels throughout France and around the world, and frequently broadcasts on radio. Sébastien Daucé and Correspondances are in residence at the Théâtre de Caen, where they developed their first staged projects (Trois Femmes directed by Vincent Huguet in 2016, Le Ballet Royal de la Nuit directed by Francesca Lattuada in November 2017), and are associate artists at the Centre Culturel de Rencontre d’Ambronay, at the Opéra and Chapelle of the Château de Versailles, and at La Chapelle de la Trinité with the support of the Ville de Lyon.

Significant stages in the ensemble’s career have been tours to Japan, Colombia, the United States and China, alongside regular appearances in Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany, Benelux, Italy, Poland). Its exploration of a little-performed and often unpublished repertory has led, with the support of the harmonia mundi label, a pioneer of the Baroque repertory in many respects, to a discography of eleven recordings that have attracted considerable press attention and have received such distinctions as the Diapason d’Or of the Year, ffff de Télérama, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, ‘Choc’ of the Year in Classica, German Record Critics’ Award and IRR Outstanding.

Correspondances now enjoys international recognition: at the ECHO Preis ceremony in the Berlin Konzerthaus in 2016, it won the award categories of Best World Premiere Recording (for Le Concert Royal de la Nuit) and Best Young Conductor of the Year, while the Australian Limelight magazine named it Operatic Recording of 2016 for Le Concert Royal de la Nuit.

Alongside his activities as a performing musician, Sébastien Daucé works with the leading scholars of seventeenth-century music, publishing regular articles and taking part in important performance practice projects. Passionately interested in questions of musical style, he edits the music that makes up the ensemble’s repertory, going so far as to recompose complete pieces when necessary, as was the case in Le Ballet Royal de la Nuit. He has taught at the Pôle Supérieur de Paris since 2012. In 2018 he is guest artistic director of the London Festival of Baroque Music. Sébastien Daucé is also an associate artist of the Fondation Royaumont.