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Both as a harpsichordist and as a conductor, Christophe Rousset is a leader in the contemporary revival of French Baroque music. He is exceptionally prolific as a recording artist, with well over 100 albums to his credit.

Rousset was born on April 12, 1961, in Avignon, France. After studying piano as a boy, he became deeply interested in the harpsichord at age 13. He studied with Huguette Dreyfus at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and, from 1980 to 1983, with Bob van Asperen at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. He won a special certificate of distinction at the Schola Cantorum and, in 1983, the first prize at the International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges. Rousset rose quickly through the ranks of the world's harpsichordists. He soon appeared at some of the most prestigious early music festivals, including those of Aix-en-Provence, Utrecht, and Les Printemps des Arts de Nantes, among others. He recorded for the Decca label and its early music imprint L'Oiseau-Lyre, and a recording of the Piéces de clavecin of Rameau won the 1992 Gramophone Award for Best Baroque Non-Vocal Release and the Belgian Cecilia Prize. During his time as a specialist in Baroque harpsichord, he often performed the harpsichord continuo parts in ensemble music. It was natural that Rousset's harpsichord appearances with such established authentic instrument ensembles as La Petite Bande, Musica Antique de Cologne, and the Academy of Ancient Music led him to an interest in leading a Baroque ensemble, and he founded Les Talens Lyriques in 1991. The group was primarily interested in reviving French Baroque music and exploring the connections between the distinct national styles of France and other major European nations. An important introduction of Les Talens Lyriques to the wider world came in 1993 at the Festival de Beaune when the group performed Handel's opera Scipione. It has also played ballets and operas of Cimarosa, Berutti, and Mondonville and experienced popular success with the soundtrack for the movie Farinelli, which had extraordinary sales for an early music classical release, moving well over 600,000 copies worldwide.

Rousset has continued to record as a solo harpsichordist, often exploring the rich fund of French Baroque harpsichord music beyond Rameau and Couperin. The explosion of interest in Baroque opera in the 2010s has stimulated a busy schedule of performances and recordings of operas with Rousset as director; he has recorded, mostly for the Aparte and Ediciones Singulares labels, such novelties as Lully's Amadis (2014), Antonio Salieri's Les Danaïdes (2015), and, in 2017, Etienne-Nicolas Méhul's early Romantic Uthal. By that time, Rousset ranked as one of the most prolific performers of Baroque repertory on the European scene. Between 2018 and mid-2020, he released no fewer than 13 albums, mostly on Aparte, and he remained vigorously active through the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, he moved to the Château de Versailles label for a recording of Lully's opera Psyché. Rousset is noteworthy as a teacher and mentor, with countless "graduates" from Les Talens Lyriques populating European early music orchestras and stages. In 2004, he was honored by the French government as Officier des Arts et Lettres and Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Mérite. ~ James Manheim & Joseph Stevenson

The historical performance ensemble Les Talens Lyriques has devoted itself to Baroque opera and often to the revival of unfamiliar operatic scores. The group also performs works in other genres, many of them French.

Les Talens Lyriques was formed in 1991 by harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset, who remains its director. It is supported not only by patrons but by the city of Paris and the French Ministry of Culture. The ensemble took its name from the subtitle of Rameau's 1739 opera Les Fêtes d'Hébé. It has participated in productions of such difficult-to-stage works as Les Indes galantes, with its Peruvian-Native American-Turkish setting. The ensemble has collaborated with a variety of directors, choreographers, and stage designers in its efforts to bring to life operas from the Baroque era and later. Performances and recordings by Les Talens Lyriques have ranged from Monteverdi (all the major operas and many madrigals and sacred works as well) and Cavalli (La Didone, La Calisto) to Handel (ten operas, including the rare Riccardo Primo). Les Talens Lyriques began to record quite early on, issuing the album Pascal Collasse: Cantiques spirituels de Racine on the Erato label in 1993.

Lully, whose operas have rarely been performed, has been represented in Les Talens Lyriques' catalog by Persée, Roland, and Bellérophon, among others. The group has revived works by Desmarest (Vénus et Adonis), Mondonville (Les Fêtes de Paphos), Cimarosa (Il Mercato di Malmantile, Il Matrimonio segreto), Traetta (Antigona, Ippolito ed Aricia), Jommelli (Armida abbandonata), and Martin y Soler (La Capricciosa Corretta, Il Tutore burlato). The group's repertory extends forward not only to Mozart (Mitridate, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Così fan tutte) but also to his rival Salieri (La Grotta di Trofonio, Les Danaïdes, Les Horaces); not only to Beethoven, but to Cherubini (Médée), García (Il Califfo di Bagdad), Berlioz, Massenet, and even Saint-Saëns.

The group members have served as artists-in-residence at the Singer-Polignac Foundation in Paris and have devoted some of their energies to educational initiatives designed to introduce young people to Baroque music. Les Talens Lyriques has released more than 60 albums on the Erato, FNAC Music, and Decca labels, among others. Perhaps the most publicly noted was the soundtrack album of the 1994 film Farinelli, depicting the great 18th century castrato. The year 2017 saw four new releases by Les Talens Lyriques, including a trio of Lully operas and a return to Farinelli in a live performance featuring mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg, and the year 2019 was similarly productive. In 2021, Les Talens Lyriques released an album featuring Salieri's rarely-heard opera Armida. The group remained active through the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing three Lully operas on the Aparte and Château de Versailles labels. In 2024, Les Talens Lyriques and Rousset issued a recording of composer Louise Bertin's Fausto on the Palazzetto Bru Zane label and one of Domenico Cimarosa's L'Olimpiade, about the original Olympic games, on Château de Versailles. The group also backed tenor Michael Spyres on the recital album In the Shadows. ~ James Manheim

Baritone Ashley Riches landed places in several of Britain's most prominent programs for emerging artists and appeared at major opera houses in Britain and beyond quite early in his career.

Riches was born in 1986 or 1987 and grew up in Scarborough in North Yorkshire, where he attended the Scarborough College secondary school. As a student there, he played the flute and was inspired by his grandfather Charles Riches, a longtime jazz bandleader at Scarborough's Olympia Ballroom. Ashley went on to Winchester College and then to King's College, Cambridge, where he sang in the King's College Choir and took voice lessons. His main field of study was English, however, and he looked toward a career as a lawyer. He had already lined up an entry-level job at a London firm when his singing teacher suggested that he continue his music studies instead. Riches auditioned and was accepted at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He graduated as a finalist for the school's gold medal. Riches served a major apprenticeship at the Royal Opera House in London as a Jette Parker Young Artist from 2012 to 2014, and he snared attention at a gala concert when he sang a duet with tenor Roberto Alagna. Another boost to his career was a designation as a BBC New Generation Artist from 2016 to 2018. Riches has sung with major companies, including the English National Opera (where he played Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro), the Opéra Nationale de Lorraine in France, and Moscow's Novaya Opera. He made his debut at the BBC Proms in 2019 with an appearance as Bernardino in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini. Riches is also active as a concert artist, performing in Handel's Messiah at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, under his former King's College Choir director, Stephen Cleobury, Verdi's Requiem at both Royal Albert Hall and Winchester Cathedral, and Bach's St. Matthew Passion on tour in Europe with the Monteverdi Choir and its director, John Eliot Gardiner, among other works. Riches performed in the British premiere of Shostakovich's unfinished opera Orango under conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Riches has appeared on various operatic recordings and made his solo debut in 2015 with a world premiere, that of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Shakespeare Sonnets, on the Resonus Classics label. Two years later, he moved to Chandos for a recording of songs by Arthur Sullivan. Riches returned in 2021 with A Musical Zoo, a recital of songs about animals. ~ James Manheim

Belgium's Choeur de Chambre de Namur ("Namur Chamber Choir") has a large repertory of choral standards but has focused especially on historical performances of early music. The group has a large repertory of recordings, many of them made for the Ricercar label.

The Choeur de Chambre de Namur was founded in 1987 in Namur, Belgium, by the Center for Choral Singing of the Communauté française de Belgique ("French Community of Belgium"). The group receives some government funding but has been successful in drawing audiences and generating album sales almost from the beginning. For a time, the choir favored music from Belgium's Wallonia region, such as Orlande de Lassus and André Grétry, but soon, its repertory broadened. The choir's size varies from 12 to 32 singers, according to the requirements of the music being performed. The Choeur de Chambre de Namur has always welcomed guest conductors, including such leading lights of the historical performance movement as Christophe Rousset, Jordi Savall, and Marc Minkowski. In its first years, the group has a sequence of conductors that included Pierre Cao, Denis Menier, Olivier Opdebeek, and Patrick Davin. In 2002, Jean Tubéry became conductor; he was succeeded in 2010 by Leonardo García Alarcón. In 1993, the Choeur de Chambre de Namur made its recording debut, joining the instrumental group La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy for a performance of Handel's Messiah on the Astrée label. In the late '90s, the group made several recordings on the Cypres label, including one of Paul Uy's Choral pour la Paix in 1996. Although the choir is oriented toward Baroque music, it has a large repertory extending forward to the contemporary era. In 2000, the group made a critically acclaimed recording of Benoît Mernier's Missa Christi Regis Genitum.

The Choeur de Chambre de Namur has collaborated with leading early music instrumental ensembles, including Les Agrémens, La Petite Bande, and the Ricercar Consort. The group is closely associated with the ensemble Les Agrémens. It has also appeared with prominent modern-instrument groups such as the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de Lille, and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. In 2003, with In dulci jubilo... Deutsche Barock Weinacht, the choir made its first recording for the Ricercar label. It has remained associated with that label, although it has also recorded for Ambronay, Alpha, and Aparte, among other labels. By 2023, when the Choeur de Chambre de Namur released an album on Alpha featuring Mozart's Requiem in D minor, K. 626, and Giovanni Paisiello's Mass for the Coronation of Napoleon, the group's recording catalog comprised some 50 items. ~ James Manheim