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Alto and mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot has been an important presence on the Baroque operatic scene in the 2010s and 2020s. She has also, since 2012, led her own ensemble, Tictatus.

Richardot grew up in eastern France, where she sang for six years in the Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Lorraine d'Epinal, a children's choir. Instead of continuing with music, however, she studied journalism and worked in that field until she was 27. Returning to vocal studies, Richardot attended the Conservatoire du Vème arrondissement de Paris, the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, and finally, Paris' Conservatoire à rayonnement régional, where she worked with Margreet Hoenig, Noëlle Barker, and Jill Feldman, among others. A notable feature of Richardot's career is that she was taking on, and even originating, major roles while still a student. Shortly after resuming her studies, she performed with the ensemble Poème Harmonique under director Vincent Dumestre in Lully's opera Cadmus et Hermione. Richardot played the first Aunt in the premiere performance of the contemporary opera Yvonne, Princesse de Bourgogne, by Philippe Boesmans, in 2009. Another major contemporary role was one in Luigi Nono's Omaggio a Kurtag, which Richardot performed in 2014 with the famed Ensemble InterContemporain.

In the Baroque realm, Richardot performed as Lisa in Vivaldi's little-heard opera Arsilda with the Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704 in 2017. She has appeared with Solistes XXI, Ensemble Pygmalion, and Les Arts Florissants as part of a complete performance cycle of Monteverdi's madrigals under director Paul Agnew. Richardot also performed in a series of Bach cantata concerts in Paris and appeared on several recordings of this repertory. In 2018, she made her first appearance on recordings as a featured soloist on Perpetual Night, an album of 17th century English songs, with Ensemble Correspondances under Sébastien Daucé. In 2020, Richardot formed a new voice-and-piano duo with pianist Anne de Fornel, whom she met at a French radio interview. That year, she moved to the Alpha label, performing on a recording of a small-ensemble adaptation of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. She then moved to Harmonia Mundi, appearing on recordings of music by Pergolesi, Berio, and, in 2022, a hypothetical Great Venetian Mass by Vivaldi. ~ James Manheim

Pianist Anne de Fornel appears on several contemporary music recordings and is active as a musicologist specializing in contemporary music. She is also an educator who has taught at the American School of Paris, among other institutions.

Billing herself as Franco-American, de Fornel has translated booklet notes between French and English. She was born in Paris in 1984. In 2006, de Fornel graduated from the Regional Conservatory of Paris (CRR), where she studied with Olivier Gardon. She went on the next year for a master's degree in musicology at the University of Paris - Sorbonne and also earned a master's in piano at the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon (CNSMD), studying with Florent Boffard and Svetlana Eganian. In 2012, she earned a PhD in musicology at Sorbonne. As a pianist, de Fornel won various prizes and was named a Gold Talent by the International Rotary Club.

Many of de Fornel's appearances as a pianist have been at conference concerts (Meiji University in Tokyo, the IRCAM in Paris, and the University of Burgundy) and with chamber music groups. In 2010, she founded Ensemble Mesostics and continues to serve as its artistic director. In 2019, de Fornel issued the book John Cage, published by Éditions Fayard; it is regarded as a major study of that composer. She is committed to contemporary music, and as a member of Trio Steuermann, she participated in the premiere of the Klaviertrio of Johannes Boris Borowski. She has premiered several other works with various ensembles. As a solo pianist, de Fornel has appeared at various Paris venues, as well as at the Auditori in Barcelona, the Kulturhaus in Baden-Baden, and festivals across France and Europe. In 2020, de Fornel and pianist Jay Gottlieb released the album Cage Meets Satie on the Paraty label. The following year, de Fornel played the Piano Concerto No. 2 of Pierre Wissmer with the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra in the Czech Republic, and she was named Director of Research at the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon. In 2023, she backed mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot on the album Les heures claires, featuring the complete songs of Lili and Nadia Boulanger. ~ James Manheim

The versatile operatic baritone Stéphane Degout has been a frequent sight on operatic stages in his native France, the U.S., Italy, and elsewhere since coming on the scene in the late '90s. In addition to mainstream Italian, German, and French opera, he has also appeared in early music productions and is adept in French song repertory.

Degout was born in Bourg-en-Bresse in eastern France on June 9, 1975, and grew up in nearby Saint-Jean-de-Niost. He attended the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Lyon, went on to the National Conservatory of Music and Dance, and has continued to live in France's second city. His debut major role came in 1998 at the Opéra National in Lyon, as Pagageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, and he reprised the role in Aix-en-Provence in 1999. Degout studied with Margreet Honig at the conservatory and took master classes with Régine Crespin and Gundula Janowitz, among other prominent singers. A second prize in the 2002 Plácido Domingo Competition boosted his profile beyond his home region, and since then, he has appeared at many of the world's top houses.

At the Theater an der Wien, Degout has sung Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte and the title role in Monteverdi's Orfeo. At London's Covent Garden, he has been seen as Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola and as Mercutio in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. He has also made multiple appearances at both the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In the early music field, he has worked under conductors René Jacobs, William Christie, and Emmanuelle Haïm, among others. Degout also lists several premieres of contemporary operas among his credits; he was cast in the premiere of Benôit Mernier's La Dispute in 2013 and in three operas by composer Philippe Boesmans: Au monde (2014) and La monnaie and Pinocchio (2017). The year 2018 saw the release of no fewer than three Degout recordings: a Pinocchio recording was issued on the Cypres label; the aria recital Enfers (with Raphaël Pichon) appeared on Harmonia Mundi; and he was the baritone soloist in Charpentier's Leçons de Ténèbres under conductor Jonathan Cohen on the Hyperion label. Degout was nominated for a Best Opera Recording Grammy Award in 2019 for George Benjamin: Lessons in Love and Violence. He continued to record for Harmonia Mundi and had a busy schedule in 2019 and 2020 that was interrupted only briefly by the coronavirus pandemic. In March of 2020, he issued the album Epic: Lieder & Balladen with pianist Simon Lepper. Degout returned in 2022 with a pair of releases, an appearance on the group Pygmalion's recording of Bach's Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244, and another on an album of Ravel works featuring pianist Cédric Tiberghien. Degout was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2012. ~ James Manheim

Emmanuelle Bertrand is one of France's most prominent and adventurous cellists, with a strong commitment to contemporary music, including avant-garde works. She is also active as an educator. Bertrand has a substantial recording catalog, much of it with pianist Pascal Amoyel. In 2024, the pair issued the album Cello Dreams: Berceuses pour violoncelle et piano.

Bertrand was born on November 5, 1973, in the mining and manufacturing town of Firminy in the Loire region of southeastern France. She attended the Lyon and Paris Conservatories, studying with Jean Deplace and Philippe Muller. Although she proclaims herself "not one of those competition animals who get drunk on the race for international prizes," she has won a number of them, including the Rostropovich International Competition and first prize at the Japan Chamber Music Competition. She made her recording debut in 2000 with the album Oeuvres pour violoncelle seul. Bertrand has appeared as a soloist with a large variety of orchestras internationally, including the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Greater Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Wales. Championed by Henri Dutilleux early in her career, Bertrand has emphasized contemporary music in her repertory to an unusual degree. She has performed works by major contemporary figures, including Dutilleux, Boulez, and Berio, as well as works composed for her by Nicolas Bacri, Edith Canat de Chizy, Thierry Escaich, and others. Bertrand also performs lecture-concerts based on music and events of the World War I and World War II eras. Since 1999, she has performed with pianist Pascal Amoyel in a duo and with the Altair Quartet.

Bertrand has recorded mostly for the Harmonia Mundi label. She has issued more than 15 albums, including, in 2019, a complete cycle of Bach's Suites for solo cello. In 2021, she and Amoyel issued the album Brahms: Sonatas & Liebeslieder for Cello & Piano. She moved to Alpha for the 2023 chamber music recital Nature romantique, returning to Harmonia Mundi with Amoyel for 2024's Cello Dreams. Her albums have been honored with the Diapason d'Or, the Choc de Classica, the Gramophone Music Award, the Cannes Classical Award, and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. She teaches chamber music at the Paris Conservatory. Bertrand is a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. ~ James Manheim

One of a pair of violin-playing Romanian-French sisters -- Deborah Nemtanu is her younger sibling -- Sarah Nemtanu has become a fixture of the French orchestral scene thanks to her solo appearances with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, where she served as joint concertmaster for many years. She has made duo concerto appearances with Deborah Nemtanu but has maintained an independent career. Sarah Nemtanu was born in Romania in 1981 and shortly after that immigrated with her family to France, where her father, Vladimir Nemtanu, had taken a post of principal violin of the Bordeaux Aquitaine National Orchestra. Sarah had her first lessons with her father. In 1993 she was heard by Gérard Poulet, professor of violin at the Paris Conservatoire, and began taking lessons with him. She was admitted to the Conservatoire in 1997, studying with Poulet (violin) and Pierre-Laurent Aimard (chamber music), and winning top prizes at graduation in both fields. Nemtanu began to concertize regularly in Paris and won the Maurice Ravel First Prize at the Saint-Jean-de-Luz competition in 1998 and third prize at the Antonio Stradivarius competition in 2001. By that time she had already made her formal debut in the Brahms Double Concerto, Op. 102, with Gautier Capuçon, under the baton of Emmanuel Krivine, in December of 2000. Nemtanu performed a concert in 2002 under conductor Kurt Masur with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and was subsequently named as joint concertmaster and as featured soloist; the latter was a position also held by her sister. Since then, Nemtanu has performed under such conductors as Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis, and Riccardo Muti, and has performed, among other places, at Century Hall in Tokyo and Carnegie Hall in New York. Nemtanu's recording career began in 2000 with Gypsic, a collaboration with Canadian crossover experimentalist Chilly Gonzales. She has recorded for Naïve and Naxos; the latter album was a compilation of concertos by Lebanese composer Bechara El Khoury. Sarah and Deborah Nemtanu recorded several albums together in the 2010s: Bach and Schnittke double concertos for Naïve, Bartók's 44 Duos for Decca, and, in 2018, the Martinu Concerto for two violins and orchestra, H. 329, for PentaTone Classics. ~ James Manheim