Notre-Dame - Cathédrale d'émotions Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris

Henri Chalet
is Director and principal choir conductor at the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris since 2014, after having worked with Lionel Sow as assistant choir conductor.

He graduated in composition and choir conducting from Paris and Lyon Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. Between 2010 and 2017, he took over the mixed-voice jeune chœur de Paris at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional. He succeeded at the musical direction of its founder, Laurence Equilbey, and to Geoffroy Jourdain, whom he was the assistant.

Until 2011, he also served as artistic director of the Saint-Christophe de Javel Maîtrise, an ensemble with which he has made several recordings, including Duruflé’s Requiem and the premiere recording of Yves Castagnet’s Psaumes. From 2011 to 2013, he has been coaching the choir of the Orchestre de Paris on a regular basis. As recognized and respected musician, he was invited in many prestigious concert halls (Bordeaux Opéra Comique, Le Havre Volcan…) and in all over the world (Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Moscow Tchaikovsky Hall, Cambridge Clare College, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Budapest Rasio Choir, New-York Lincoln Center…).

With the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, he conducted or prepared for high reputation invited conductors big monuments of sacred music as the Monterverdi’s Virgin Vespers, Bach’s Matthaus Passion, Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s Requiem, Brahm’s German Requiem, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, Stravinsky’s Mass, Thierry Escaich’s Last Gospel, Philippe Hersant’s Vespers.

He could thus collaborate with great conductors like Leonardo García Alarcón, Sir Roger Norrington, David Reiland, John Nelson, Sofi Jeannin, Gustavo Dudamel…

At the head of jeune chœur de paris, he has recorded with Natalie Dessay, Karine Deshayes, Philippe Cassard, but also with Marie-Nicole Lemieux and the Orchestre national de France or Sabine Devieilhe and Les Ambassadeurs orchestra.

Trained professional organist graduated at the Paris and Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional, Henri Chalet was one of the titular organists at the Church of Notre-Dame in Versailles until 2014.

Lionel Sow
Since 2011, when Lionel Sow took over running the Orchestre de Paris Chorus, he has developed a major training project in which pedagogy plays a pivotal role. His desire is not only to provide the Orchestre de Paris with a chorus capable of singing the choral repertoire with passion and talent, but also to enable young singers to be trained in a demanding environment. An academy, a chamber choir, a children's choir and a youth choir have been created between 2012 and 2015.

Before his arrival at the Orchestre de Paris, Lionel Sow successively conducted the Maîtrise des petits chanteurs de Saint-Christophe de Javel, the vocal ensemble les Temperamens and the Maîtrise de Notre Dame de Paris.

In 2017, Lionel Sow joined the Voice and Choral Conducting Department of the Lyon Conservatoire (CNSM). He also regularly collaborates as a guest chorusmaster for professional orchestras and choirs in France and abroad.

Lionel Sow was made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in January 2011.

Les Sacqueboutiers
ensemble de cuivres anciens de Toulouse have been in existence for more than thirty five years, during which time they have built up a reputation as one of the finest early music ensembles on the international scene.

Regarded by specialists and the public alike as a reference in the interpretation of seventeenth-century instrumental music, particularly that of Italy and Germany, the ensemble has reaped the highest awards for its recordings.

When they decided to form Les Sacqueboutiers in 1974, Jean-Pierre Canihac and Jean-Pierre Mathieu were among the first to embark on the adventurous rediscovery of early instruments. The quality if their work soon attracted attention, and they took part in the groundbreaking recording of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, conducted by Michel Corboz. Since then, they have performed music ranging from the Renaissance to Mozart, with many prestigious ensembles including Les Arts Florissants (William Christie), La Chapelle Royale (Philippe Herreweghe), A Sei Voci (Bernard Fabre-Garrus), Elyma (Gabriel Garrido), La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy (Jean-Claude Malgoire), and the Clément Janequin Ensemble (Dominique Visse).

With these ensembles or in their own programmes, Les Sacqueboutiers have appeared at all the great European festivals, and in South America.

The group comprises a nucleus of cornetts and sackbuts, which are joined, as the needs arise, by other instruments (violins, viols, bassoons, shawms) and vocalist(s) (a soloist, a group of ten or so singers, or a vocal quartet).

Flexibility is necessary in the performance of such a varied repertoire. In collaboration with specialised musicologists, Les Sacqueboutiers often work on revivals. Indeed, one of the ensemble’s major objectives is to play an active part in the gradual rediscovery of the very fine works that make up our European musical heritage.

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