Lea Desandre, mezzo

French-Italian mezzo Lea Desandre was 20 when she was awarded a place on William Christie’s Le Jardin des Voix Academy. In 2017 she was named Vocal Discovery at the Victoires de la Musique Classique Awards. She studied with Sara Mingardo in Venice and can also look back on a 12-year period of training as a ballet dancer. Since 2015 Lea Desandre has been acclaimed in various roles, including Urbain (Les Huguenots), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Annio (La clemenza di Tito), Sesto (Giulio Cesare), Dido (Dido and Aeneas), Messaggera (L’Orfeo), Flerida in Cavalli’s Erismena and the title role in Marais’ Alcione. She delighted her audiences at the Paris Opéra Comique in a fully-staged one-woman show, Et in Arcadia ego, with music by Rameau. She made her Salzburg Festival debutin Offenbach’s La Périchole under Marc Minkowski, returning that same summer for L’incoronazione di Poppeamunder Christie/Lawers and at Whitsun 2019 for Caldara’s oratorio La morte d’Abel and for the gala concert Farinelli & Friends with Cecilia Bartoli. In the summer 2019 she was heard as Vénus in Orphée aux enfers under Mazzola/Kosky and for the 100 years of the Festival, she made her debuts as Despina (Così Fan Tutte) under Mallwitz/Loy. Concert appearances and song recitals have taken her to London’s Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Musikverein, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Philharmonie de Paris, the Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Sydney Opera House, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, Shanghai Symphony Hall. As a committed chamber recitalist she also appears regularly with the lutenist Thomas Dunford and his Jupiter ensemble. In addition to the above-named conductors, she has also worked with John Eliot Gardiner, Louis Langrée, Raphaël Pichon, Jordi Savall, Emmanuelle Haïm, Enrique Mazzola and Leonardo García Alarcón.

Thomas Dunford – lute

The “Eric Clapton of the lute”as the BBC Magazine called him, Thomas Dunford is regularly in demand, playing a variety of early plucked string instruments with the ensembles Les Arts Florissants, Akadêmia, Amarillis, Les Ambassadeurs, Arcangelo, La Cappella Mediterranea, Capriccio Stravagante, Le Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, La Chapelle Rhénane, Clematis, Collegium Vocale Gent, Le Concert Spirituel, Le Concert d’Astrée, The English Concert, l’Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, La Fenice, Les Folies Francaises, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, Marsyas, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Les Musiciens du Paradis, Les Musiciens de Saint Julien, Les Ombres, Pierre Robert, Pygmalion, La Sainte Folie Fantastique, Scherzi Musicali, La Serenissima, Les Siècles, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, La Symphonie du Marais. Making his debut playing the role of the lutenist in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on stage at the Comédie française, since 2003 Thomas has played recitals in New York’s Carnegie Hall and Frick Collection, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Washington Kennedy Center, Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, the festivals of Saintes, Utrecht, Maguelone, Froville, TAP Poitiers, WDR Cologne, Radio France Montpellier, Saffron Hall. He made numerous solo or ensemble appearances in the most prestigious European festivals including Ambronay, Arc La Bataille, Bozar, La Chaise-Dieu, Nantes, Saintes, Utrecht and many others. He has also performed further afield Europe, Brazil, Colombia, Chili, Mexico, United States, Israel, China, Japan and India. CD Lachrimae recorded for Alpha in 2012, was unanimously acclaimed by critics and was awarded the Caecilia prize of 2013. His second CD « Labirinto d’Amore »  was awarded the « Choc » from Classica magazine. Born in Paris in 1988, Thomas Dunford discovered the lute at the age of nine. He completed his studies in 2006 at the Conservatoire de Paris (CRR) with honors then he specialized at the Schola Cantorum in Basel graduating in 2009.