William Christie, harpsichordist, conductor, musicologist, and teacher, is the inspiration behind one of the most exciting musical adventures of the last 40 years. A pioneer in the rediscovery of Baroque music, he has introduced the repertoire of 17th- and 18th-century France to a very wide audience across the globe. Born in Buffalo and educated at Harvard and Yale, Christie has lived in France since 1971. The turning point in his career came in 1979, when he founded Les Arts Florissants. 

As director of this vocal and instrumental ensemble, Christie soon made his mark as both a musician and man of the theater, in the concert hall and the opera house. Major public recognition came in 1987 with the production of Lully’s Atys at the Opéra Comique in Paris. From Charpentier to Rameau through Couperin and Mondonville, Christie is the uncontested master of tragédie-lyrique as well as opéra-ballet, and is just as comfortable with the French motet as with music of the court. But his affection for French music does not preclude him from exploring other European repertoires, such as Monteverdi, Rossi, Scarlatti, Landi, Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Bach. 

Wishing to develop further his work as a teacher, in 2002 Christie created Le Jardin des Voix, Les Arts Florissant’s biennial Baroque academy for young singers, now established at Thiré in Vendée (France). Since 2007 he has been artist in residence at the Juilliard School in New York, where he gives master classes twice a year. In 2012, he created the Festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie in his own gardens in Thiré, where he welcomes every summer young musicians from the Juilliard School and singers of the Jardin des Voix along with the musicians and singers of Les Arts Florissants. 

In November 2008, Christie was elected to France’s Académie des Beaux-Arts. Highlights of his 2025—26 season include a South American tour of Purcell's The Fairy Queen, this Charpentier Midnight Mass program, Handel's Concerti grossi, Scarlatti's Messa di Santa Cecilia, and an international Charpentier tour with the winners of the 12th edition of Le Jardin des Voix. 

From the very beginning of her career, Emmanuelle de Negri has demonstrated her talent across diverse repertoires, displaying a wide range of emotions and colors. She established a close collaboration with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants for many years. Emmanuelle also performs with major French ensembles such as Pulcinella, Raphaël Pichon’s Pygmalion, Vincent Dumestre’s Le Poème Harmonique, Le Banquet Céleste, Les Paladins, Le Caravanserail, I Stagioni, and Les Accents. 

Emmanuelle moves effortlessly from Monteverdi and Cavalli, to Offenbach and Dukas, by way of Rameau and Mozart. In 2017 she made her debut at the Opéra National de Paris (Nedda in Gianni Schicchi). She sang a “perfectly delightful” Despina under Riccardo Muti at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and “offered a moving performance” (forumopera.com), with a “voice, projected with a luminous core, responding to her mistress’s despair with no less engaged vehemence, caring as much for the text as for its effects” (olyrix.com) in Charpentier’s Médée at the Opéra Garnier and Madrid’s Teatro Real last season. 

The most prestigious conductors, such as William Christie, Riccardo Muti, René Jacobs, Raphaël Pichon, Vincent Dumestre, and Emmanuelle Haïm, praise her timbre of “poignant luminosity,” as highlighted by Opera magazine. When not on opera stages around the world, Emmanuelle performs in recital alongside Brice Sailly, Romain Descharmes, and Sébastien Mazoyer. 

She begins this season with the re-creation of sacred works by De Nebra with Los Elementos conducted by Alberto Rouco, and the revival of the recital An Evening with Mme Storace dedicated to Mozart’s concert arias with Daniel Isoir’s La Petite Symphonie. Emmanuelle then joins Thibault Noailly and Paul Figuier’s Les Accents for Alessandro Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater in Paris and sings Bellezza in Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo in Stockholm for Jonas Nordberg. She will be heard in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and as Amore in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at the Opéra de Limoges, before ending the season with Handel’s Aminata e Filide in recital with Bruno de Sá and Purcell’s Orpheus Britannicus alongside Brice Sailly. 

Bastien Rimondi completed his studies at the CNSMDP in 2021. He joined the Tchaikovsky class (2021-2022) at the Académie Jaroussky. He took part in the 12th edition of the Jardin des Voix for the 2025—26 season. He has recently performed at Carnegie Hall, the Bordeaux Opera, Saffron Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Grand Théâtre de Provence, and the Bela Bartok National Concert Hall in a major Baroque program (Jason, Atys, Pygmalion) for William Christie's birthday with Les Arts Florissants, in the arias from Bach's St John Passion at the NFM in Wroclaw conducted by Marc Minkowski, at the Rennes Opera in the role of Pane in Cavalli's Calisto, premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival under the direction of Sébastien Daucé, and also in the role of Gérald in Léo Delibes' Lakmé in Albi with the Datura company.

Bastien will soon be heard in the roles of Envy and the Nurse in Cadmus and Hermione by Lully under the direction of Christophe Rousset, in the role of Actéon by Charpentier on tour in Asia and Europe under the direction of William Christie, in the role of Ormonte in Atalia by Gasparini in Tourcoing with the Hemiolia ensemble under the direction of Emmanuel Resche-Caserta and, of course, on tour with Les Arts Florissants for Le Jardin des Voix in the roles of Orpheus and Painting in Charpentier's La Descente d’Orphée and Les Arts florissants. Next season he returns to the Opéra Garnier to play the role of Gabriel in a contemporary creation by Hector Perrà based on Pierre Lemaitre's book Miroir de nos Peines. 

Since 2015, he has formed the duo Florestan with pianist Timothée Hudrisier. They perform in numerous concerts and festivals in France, and are winners of the Concours international de la mélodie de Gordes and the Concours international de la mélodie française de Toulouse (1st Prize). 

American bass Alex Rosen has built longstanding partnerships with many of the world’s foremost ensembles, including Pygmalion, Il Pomo d’Oro, Jupiter Ensemble, and Les Arts Florissants. A frequent collaborator with leading conductors such as Raphaël Pichon, Leonardo García Alarcón, William Christie, and Jonathan Cohen, he is a sought-after artist across both opera and concert stages. 

This season features an array of projects and debuts. He embarks on four major tours: Handel’s Theodora (Valens) with Jupiter Ensemble; two tours of Bach’s St Matthew Passion—one with Pygmalion under Raphaël Pichon, and the other with Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen; and Handel’s Giulio Cesare (Achilla) with Il Pomo d’Oro. He makes a notable house and role debut at Opéra national de Paris as Bembo in Ercole Amante and returns to Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. 

Other career highlights include Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Il Tempo/Nettuno/Antinoo) at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, The Cunning Little Vixen (Parson/Badger) at Detroit Opera, L’Orfeo (Caronte) with Nederlandse Reisopera, and Handel’s Semele with Opera Philadelphia. On the concert platform, Alex has toured Japan and South Korea with Les Arts Florissants in performances of the St. John Passion, toured Europe with Pygmalion in Mozart’s Requiem, and performed Honegger’s Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Alan Gilbert. 

A passionate recitalist, Rosen maintains an ongoing collaboration with pianist Michał Biel. Together, they earned Second Prize at the 2018 International Hugo Wolf Academy Competition and are laureates of the Royaumont Foundation’s Art Song Academy. The duo has performed at distinguished venues including Wigmore Hall and the LIFE Victoria Festival in Barcelona. 

Rosen is a graduate of The Juilliard School and made his international debut with Les Arts Florissants under William Christie, touring Haydn’s The Creation and Handel’s Acis and Galatea. In recognition of his artistry, he was recently awarded the Prix Gabriel Dussurget 2025 from Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. 

An ensemble of singers and instrumentalists specialized in performance on period instruments, Les Arts Florissants has played a pioneering role in the revival of Baroque repertoire. Founded in 1979 by William Christie, it gives around 100 concerts and opera performances each season, in France and internationally, and has produced an extensive discography—especially in its own collection with the Harmonia Mundi record label. Since 2020, British tenor and conductor Paul Agnew has become its co-musical director. The Ensemble has been in residence at the Philharmonie de Paris since 2015. It has launched several education programs for young musicians, including Le Jardin des Voix academy, the Arts Flo Juniors program, and a collaboration with The Juilliard School. In the village of Thiré (Vendée, Pays de la Loire), Les Arts Florissants created in 2012 the Festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie, followed by a Spring Festival in 2017 and was labelled “Centre Culturel de Rencontre” in 2017 for its project of an international artistic campus. 2018 has seen the creation of the Fondation Les Arts Florissants—William Christie.