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Cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca was a fixture on the international concert and chamber music scenes even before signing to the Sony Classical label. He has cultivated expertise in both orchestral and chamber music and in mainstream repertory and historical performance.

La Marca was born in Nice, France, in 1983. He took cello lessons in Aix-en-Provence and then moved to Paris. His teachers were largely private ones: Jean-Marie Gamard and Philippe Muller in Paris, Frans Helmerson in Cologne, and Steven Isserlis in London augmented by master classes with such figures as Mstislav Rostropovich and Heinrich Schiff. La Marca also received encouragement and mentorship from Itzhak Perlman, Seiji Ozawa, Maria-João Pires, and others. Their intuition and support bore fruit as La Marca began to make appearances at many of the world's top concert halls, including the Louvre and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Southbank Centre in London, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Signed to Sony Classical, La Marca released L'heure exquise, a recital of French songs arranged for cello and piano, with pianist Amandine Savary in 2011.

Major orchestras with which he has appeared as a soloist include the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, and the Brussels Philharmonic, as well as the early-music Sinfonia Varsovia and Il Giardino Armonico. As a co-founder and member of Trio Dali, he has championed the music of contemporary composers such as Pēteris Vasks and György Kurtág. Cultivating an unusual Bohemian image, La Marca continued to record for Sony Classical, and in 2018, he and pianist Lise de la Salle issued the recital Paris-Moscou. In 2020, he moved to the Naïve label and released the solo cello album Cello 360. In 2021, he issued the recital Wonderful World on Naïve, and he returned the following year with the album Legacy, joined by the chamber orchestra Le Concert de la Loge under the baton of Julien Chauvin. La Marca plays a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume cello from 1856 with an 1825 Jacob Eury bow. ~ James Manheim

Violinist and conductor Julien Chauvin specializes in historically oriented performance and has founded several ensembles of his own. Following 18th century practice, he often conducts while playing the violin.

Chauvin was born on March 11, 1979, in Fontainebleau, outside Paris. Even before adulthood, he was attracted by Baroque music and by historical instruments. He traveled to the Netherlands for violin studies at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague with Vera Beths, and a competition win at the Musica Antiqua Bruges festival in 2003 launched his career. Chauvin put in several years of apprenticeship in various European Baroque ensembles while also performing as a soloist as far afield as Central Asia and South America. He and Jérémie Rhorer formed the group Le Cercle de l'Harmonie in 2005, and the pair co-directed the group for ten years. In 2015, Chauvin formed Le Concert de la Loge, basing the group directly on 18th century models and often conducting from the violin. He has also collaborated with the Cambini-Paris Quartet since 2007, exploring little-known 18th century repertory with that group. Chauvin has served with the Folger Consort in Washington D.C., Les Violons du Roy, and the Kammerorchester Basel, among other groups, as a guest conductor, and he has been the music director for dramatic productions, including a production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail which he led from the violin.

Chauvin made his recording debut in 2007, appearing with Le Cercle de l'Harmonie as it backed soprano Diana Damrau on her album Arie di Bravura. He was a featured soloist -- with Rhorer -- on the 2012 album Le Paris des Romantiques on the Naïve label. Chauvin recorded several albums for Aparte and then returned to Naïve in 2020 as head of and soloist with Le Cercle de l'Harmonie on the album Vivaldi: Concerti per violino VIII "Il teatro." Chauvin remained active during the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing six albums in 2022 alone; one of those, Rivales, featured sopranos Véronique Gens and Sandrine Piau, with Chauvin conducting Le Concert de la Loge. He returned in 2023 with several albums, including Philippe Jaroussky's Forgotten Arias. By the time he released a new recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos on Alpha in 2024, his recording catalog numbered some 35 items. ~ James Manheim

Although the historical instrument group Le Concert de la Loge focuses on Classical-period music, its repertory extends into other eras. The composition of the ensemble is flexible, and it presents chamber music and opera in addition to orchestral music.

Le Concert de la Loge was founded as Le Concert de la Loge Olympique in 2015 by violinist Julien Chauvin. The latter name was that of an orchestra established in Paris in 1783 by the Comte d'Ogny; that group commissioned the six Paris Symphonies of Haydn, among other works. France's Olympic Committee objected to the use of the term "olympique," and the group was renamed Le Concert de la Loge in 2016 (its website shows the word "Olympique" but crosses it out). The new orchestra's concert schedule grew, and it attracted support from France's Ministry of Culture and Communication, the City of Paris, and Le Club Olympe, among others. Le Concert de la Loge landed several residences, including those at the Conservatoire Jean-Baptiste Lully in Puteaux, the Fondation Singer-Polignac, and, beginning in 2018, the Cité Musical in Metz. Signed to the Aparte label, the orchestra released its debut recording, featuring Haydn's Symphony No. 85 ("La Reine") in 2016, and it went on to issue further albums on Aparte, including a recital of Classical-period arias with soprano Sophie Karthäuser, an album of "Symphonies du salon" by Reicha and Beethoven, and six volumes of Haydn's symphonies, paired with other relevant works of the period.

Le Concert de la Loge has toured with several opera productions, including those of Haydn's Armida, Antonio Sacchini's Le Cid, and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne's Phèdre. The orchestra comprises some two dozen members in all, but individual performances may feature ensembles of various sizes. The group has collaborated with soprano Sandrine Piau and countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, touring Europe and South America with the latter. In 2020, Le Concert de la Loge moved to the Naïve label for a recording of concertos by Vivaldi, with Chauvin as soloist, and then to Alpha the following year with an album of works by Mozart. The year 2022 saw Le Concert de la Loge record further Vivaldi works for Naïve and more Mozart for Alpha, the latter with fortepianist Andreas Staier. ~ James Manheim