Yves Castagnet, Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris & Henri Chalet
Biography Yves Castagnet, Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris & Henri Chalet
Yves Castagnet
was born in Paris in 1965. He studied organ, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, orchestration and improvisation at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris. He completed his studies with several awards - including a "Premier Prix" in organ.
In 1988 he won the Grand Prix de Chartres in organ interpretation. After that, he began an extensive solo career that brought him concert engagements around the world.
In addition to his work as a concert organist, the liturgical service as "organist titulaire" on the choir organ of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which he has held since 1988, takes up a large part of his artistic work.
Yves Castagnet has already recorded five CDs with works by Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Franz Liszt, Julius Reubke and the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé together with the choir of Notre Dame in 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 the Paris and Lyon Music Conservatoires and, between 2010 and 2017, he took over the Jeune Choeur de Paris. He succeeded at the musical direction of its founder, Laurence Equilbey, and to Geoffroy Jourdain, whom he was the assistant. Until 2011, he was artistic director of the Saint-Christophe de Javel 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. With the 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. With the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, he conducted or prepared for high reputation invited conductors leading works of sacred music, including 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 thus collaborated with great conductors like Leonardo García Alarcón, Sir Roger Norrington, David Reiland, John Nelson, Sofi Jeannin, or Gustavo Dudamel. He has been invited as a guest conductor by prestigious institutions in France (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opéra Comique, Orchestre national Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) and worldwide (Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Moscow Tchaikovsky Hall, Cambridge Clare College, Luxembourg Philharmon, Budapest Radio Choir, New-York Lincoln Center). Trained as a professional organist, he was one of the titular organists at the Church of Notre-Dame in Versailles until 2014. In 2020, Henri Chalet is made chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
