Les Arts Florissants

France's Les Arts Florissants emerged in 1979 as an innovative ensemble devoted to reviving Baroque repertoire from France and elsewhere through period-informed performance practices. Over four decades the ensemble's impact has remained undiminished, having nurtured numerous operatic careers while also launching the acclaimed training initiative Le Jardin des Voix.

Harpsichordist William Christie established the group after departing the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. Serving simultaneously as scholar and performer, Christie personally assembled much of the ensemble's early catalog, focusing on French Baroque theatrical and choral composers such as Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jean-Philippe Rameau, whose music was then little known; he prepared fresh editions drawn frequently from the holdings of Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale. By 1985 Les Arts Florissants were presenting full productions of French operas, among them Rameau's Anacréon and Charpentier's Actéon, lavish court spectacles that demanded complete historically grounded stagings. In 1987 the ensemble earned the first of several Grand Prix de la Critique awards for its mounting of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Atys, a production that subsequently traveled across Europe and to New York.

Almost from the outset Les Arts Florissants drew interest from leading French labels, beginning a relationship with Harmonia Mundi in 1980 through a recording of works by the then-obscure Etienne Moulinié. That partnership ultimately yielded well over one hundred albums by the mid-2020s. The ensemble has explored choral music with its own Les Arts Florissants Choir, especially the French grand motet literature, and has also performed and recorded Italian and English operas; French opera nonetheless remains its central focus, realized in collaboration with France's foremost stage directors and choreographers. Much of the ensemble's sonic consistency stems from Christie's sustained direction, though he delegated certain responsibilities to tenor and conductor Paul Agnew in the late 2000s while continuing to participate actively.

The group's interests later broadened modestly to encompass Mozart, yet it has avoided contemporary repertoire unlike many other early-music organizations. In 2002 Christie created Le Jardin des Voix, which quickly established itself among Europe's premier programs for training young artists in historically informed practice. During the 2010s Les Arts Florissants maintained a brisk schedule, issuing several recordings annually. In 2019 Christie led the release of Si vous vouliez un jour: Airs sérieux et à boire, Vol. 2 on Harmonia Mundi. The ensemble sustained its activities through the COVID-19 pandemic, producing eleven Harmonia Mundi albums between 2021 and 2023, among them Schütz: Italian Madrigals in 2023.