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Trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary may be called a prodigy, making major concert appearances in French venues throughout her teenage years and releasing her first major-label album at 18. She began racking up competition wins while still a preteen. Vary's training and her recordings on the Warner Classics label are notable for their mixture of classical, jazz, and pop repertory. They include the 2024 album Jardins d'Hiver.

Vary was born in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire, France, on January 28, 1999. Showing talent early on the trumpet, she enrolled at the Conservatory of Le Mans in 2007, taking classical trumpet lessons from Philippe Lafitte and jazz instruction from Santiago Quintans. At the Conservatoire de Paris, she matriculated at first as a classical trumpet student under Clément Garrec, but in 2017, she added jazz and improvisation to her course of study. Vary's record of strong competition showings began in 2010 with a win at the Selmer Le Parnasse contest, and in November of that year, she finished third in the European Competition for Young Trumpet Players, even though the contest was for players 14 through 17, and she was only 11.

Vary made her first festival appearances in 2012 at the Eurochestries and Annecy festivals. In 2013, she appeared on French television in a tribute to trumpeter Maurice André, and that year, she made her recording debut on an album by trumpeter Guy Touvron, playing a work by Benedetto Marcello and joining Touvron on two-trumpet concertos by Saverio Mercadante and G.F. Handel by 2014, she had a busy festival schedule that included appearances in Colmar, Antibes, and Royan, performing at the last-named in a duet with star trumpeter Alison Balsom. She also gave her first major jazz concert that year, in Le Mans, at the city's Nuit de chimères event. Since then, she has divided her time roughly equally between classical and jazz appearances. Vary won a Victoire de la musique classique award in 2016 in the category of Instrumental Soloist Revelation. Vary made a guest soloist appearance at the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia in 2017, becoming the festival's youngest-ever soloist and making her debut in the Americas.

In 2016, Vary was signed to the Warner Classics label and issued her solo debut, The Voice of the Trumpet, the following year. The program combined classical works, few of them standards, with jazz treatments of Broadway hits. The 2019-2020 season saw Vary appear with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and tour Japan and Southeast Asia. She has continued to play with both classical symphony orchestras, including the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and with jazz musicians. She opened for trumpeter Wynton Marsalis at the Jazz in Marciac Festival in 2018, and she can often be heard in late-night jazz club sets. Vary returned in 2019 with the classical-pop release Mademoiselle in New York and followed that up in 2021 with Piazzolla Stories, featuring works by the tango master and other composers who influenced him. In 2022, Vary released Trumpet Concertos, which combined standards by Haydn and Hummel with little-known works. That was followed in 2024 by the trumpet-and-orchestra recital Jardins d'Hiver, which also appeared under the English title Winter Gardens. ~ James Manheim

The Orchestre de Chambre de Paris ("Paris Chamber Orchestra") is one of Europe's top small orchestras and a rare example of one that has achieved gender parity. The orchestra is notable for performing in venues not often associated with classical music.

The Orchestre de Chambre de Paris (OCP) was formed in 1978 as the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris; the current name was adopted in 2012 in recognition of the orchestra's orientation toward music for small orchestra. The group has about 40 permanent members. It was formed at the behest of the city of Paris by composer Marcel Landowski, actor Roland Bourdin, and conductor Jean-Pierre Wallez; Wallez served as the group's first music director, remaining in the post until 1986 and also taking the role of first solo violinist. He was succeeded by Armin Jordan from 1986 to 1992, Jean-Jacques Kantorow from 1994 to 1998, and John Nelson from 1998 to 2009. Joseph Swensen followed from 2009 to 2012, and he was followed by Thomas Zehetmair from 2012 to 2014. The orchestra has also played host to many guest conductors, including Thomas Dausgaard and Trevor Pinnock. Zehetmair led the group on a 2013 recording for the Mirare label of violin-and-orchestra works by Fauré and Saint-Saëns, featuring violinist Deborah Nemtanu, and he released several recordings with the group on Naïve. Zehetmair was succeeded by Douglas Boyd from 2015 to 2020. Lars Vogt became music director in 2020 and revived the orchestra's recording program, but his tenure was cut short by his death in 2022.

The Orchestre de Chambre de Paris is a resident ensemble at the Philharmonie de Paris. It also performs around greater Paris in venues such as the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Opéra Comique. Sometimes, in an effort to move closer to general audiences, the group performs in venues that do not often present classical music, including the Bataclan Concert Hall and for inmates of the Meaux-Chauconin correctional facility. The Orchestre de Chambre de Paris recorded an album of Schumann works for the ECM label in 2016, moved to Palazzetto Bru Zane for its first opera recording, Charles Lecocq's La fille de Madame Angot, in 2021, backed a variety of singers on the album Jules Massenet: Songs with Orchestra on that label in 2022 and returned to Mirare that year for a recording of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, K. 621, with soloist Raphaël Sévère. ~ James Manheim