Les Arts Florissants Spring Festival – Concerts & coffee

Concert & Café #1

Benoît Hartoin (harpsichord)
Saturday 29 April 2023, 11.00 am – Saint-Juire-Champgillon Church

The harpsichordist and organist is a long-standing collaborator with Les Arts Florissants, having accompanied numerous productions as a continuo player for nearly twenty years. In this programme, which he has chosen to title ‘Untimely Death’, he invites the audience to rediscover works by Baroque composers whose dazzling careers were cut short by premature death: Purcell, who died aged 36, as well as his contemporaries Alessandro Stradella, Louis Couperin and even… Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Concert & Café #2

Augusta McKay Lodge (violin) and Florian Carré (harpsichord)
Sunday 30 April 2023, 11.00 am – Saint-Juire-Champgillon Church

In just a few years, Augusta McKay Lodge has become a recognisable figure within Les Arts Florissants. Spotted by William Christie whilst she was still a student at the Juilliard School in New York, this young violinist has since become a fully-fledged member of the ensemble, where she now regularly takes on the role of first violin. As for Florian Carré, his mastery of the continuo and accompaniment has made him a favoured collaborator of Paul Agnew and William Christie, who entrust him each year with the role of harpsichordist or organist in many of their concerts. These are, therefore, two leading young performers, whose unique musical personalities this ‘Concert & Café’ invites you to discover, in a virtuoso programme of violin sonatas by Purcell and his contemporaries!