Bach, les premières cantates et Bernard Labadie

Bernard Labadie, an internationally recognized specialist in the baroque and classical repertoires, is the founding conductor of Les Violons du Roy. He was the ensemble’s music director from 1984 to 2014 and remains the music director of La Chapelle de Québec, which he founded in 1985.

As head of both ensembles, he has toured Europe and North America performing at some of the most illustrious concert halls and festivals: Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center (New York), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), Kennedy Center (Washington), the Barbican (London), Berlin Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Paris), Brussels’ Centre for Fine Arts, and the Salzburg, Bergen, Rheingau, and Schleswig-Holstein festivals.

In 2017, Bernard Labadie was named principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York. He conducts the orchestra’s annual concert series at Carnegie Hall, often with La Chapelle de Québec.

A much sought-after guest conductor in North America, he makes frequent appearances with major American and Canadian orchestras: Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Houston, New World Symphony, Montréal, Toronto and Ottawa. In Europe, he has conducted the Mozarteum of Salzburg and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the orchestras of Lyon, Bordeaux-Aquitaine, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. He has also headed several radio orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the radio orchestras in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hanover, and Helsinki.

Bernard Labadie regularly collaborates with some of the most prestigious period-instrument early music ensembles: Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, The English Concert, Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Handel and Haydn Society (Boston).

At the opera, he served as artistic director of Opéra de Québec from 1994 to 2003 and as artistic director of Opéra de Montréal from 2002 to 2006. He has also appeared as guest conductor with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, and the Santa Fe, Cincinnati, and Glimmerglass operas. In 2021, he made his debut appearance at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Both as a guest conductor and with Les Violons du Roy, Bernard Labadie has recorded some twenty albums for Virgin Classics (now Erato), EMI, Pentatone, Dorian, ATMA, Hyperion, and Naïve.

A tireless ambassador for music in his hometown of Québec City, Bernard Labadie was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Knight of the Ordre national du Québec, and Compagnon des arts et des lettres du Québec. He is also a recipient of the Medal of Honour of the National Assembly of Québec, the Banff Centre’s National Arts Award, the Samuel de Champlain Award, and honorary doctorates from Université Laval (Alma Mater) and the Manhattan School of Music.

The young coloratura soprano Myriam Leblanc is the recipient of several prizes: first prize and Audience Choice Award at the Trois-Rivières Symphony Orchestra Competition, Young Lyric Ambassador 2014 (Québec Bavaria prize), winner of an Audience Choice Award in the Center Stage competition of the Canadian Opera Company, third prize in the Auditions Nouvelles Découvertes competition of the Ottawa Choral Society, winner of the excellence grant awarded annually by the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal and the first prize at the Mathieu Duguay Early Music Competition at the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival in 2017. Myriam Leblanc is a versatile artist who works as much in the classical world as in the bel canto, as in the baroque. She is recognized for her timbre of great purity, for her supple and warm voice and her great mastery in both technical and musical expressiveness.

She has shone in the roles of Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto (Opéra de Montréal), Micaëla in Carmen by Bizet (Opéra de Québec), Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (Saskatoon Opera), Milica in Svadba by Sokolovic (Opéra de Montréal) , Fille-Fleur in Parsifal by Wagner (Orchestre Métropolitain), the High Priestess in Aïda by Verdi (Opera de Montréal) and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette by Gounod (Jeunesses Musicales du Canada). She also specializes in vocal concert works: Mozart’s Requiem (Les Violons du Roy), Handel’s Messiah (Caprice Ensemble), Christmas Oratorio by Bach (Caprice Ensemble), Dixit Dominus by Vivaldi (I Musici), the Magnificat by Bach (Les Violons du Roy), Symphony No. 2 Lobgesang by Mendelssohn (Orchestre Métropolitain), several cantatas by Bach including Ich habe genug and several other works.

Formerly a member of the Atelier lyrique of Montreal Opera, Myriam Leblanc has been a guest soloist of Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières, Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre Métropolitain. Her projects for 2022-2023 include Mimi in La Bohème by Puccini with Francis Choinière and the OSTR and Dido in Dido and Aeneas by Purcell with the Ensemble Caprice, Handel’s Messiah with the Festival Classica and the Tafelmusik Ensemble in Toronto, a tour in Finland with Vivaldi’s Motet In furore iustissime irae and several other projects.

Lauded for his “profoundly startling vocal resonance” (The New York Times) and “sweet and melancholy sound” (The Washington Post), Daniel Moody is celebrated for his interpretations of contemporary and baroque opera and as a soloist with orchestra.

Moody recently made debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in Brett Dean’s Hamlet as Rosencrantz, Atlanta Opera as Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare, and Cincinnati Opera as Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, where the American Record Guide praised his performance for its “utter beauty…where he would start singing ever so sweetly and then just let his voice blossom out into something big and round and smooth.”

Moody is a frequent soloist of leading symphonic and baroque orchestras, including appearances with Apollo’s Fire, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Philharmonia Baroque, and Les Violons du Roy. His appearance with Philharmonia Baroque alongside mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and conductor Nicholas McGegan was described as a “combination of tenderness and theatrical verve” (San Francisco Chronicle). Daniel has been featured in a number of Mark Morris’ productions, including Britten’s Curlew River and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and at the Tanglewood Music Festival where the Financial Times noted his “inspired and absorbing performances.” He has worked with such conductors as Daniella Candillari, Nicholas Carter, David Hill, Nicholas Kramer, Bernard Labadie, Ken Lam, Nicholas McGegan, Robert Moody, Thomas Søndergård, Jeannette Sorrell, Masaaki Suzuki, Kent Tritle, and Gary Wedow.

A sought after Handelian countertenor, Moody previously performed the title roles in Giulio Cesare and Rinaldo, Arsamene in Xerxes, Lichas in Hercules, and Didymus in Theodora.

A graduate of the prestigious Yale Voxtet, resident at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Moody has performed as a soloist at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, London’s St. John’s Smith Square, and Cambridge’s Trinity College. His performances have been broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 in the United Kingdom, on Boston’s WGBH, Indiana’s WFIU, and WSHU’s Sunday Baroque.

British tenor Hugo Hymas is in much demand for his interpretations of the baroque and renaissance repertoire, enjoying collaborations with the foremost practitioners of the genre.

Recent concert performances include a German tour of Purcell and Handel with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra directed by Kristian Bezuidenhout, Handel's sacred oratorio La Resurrezione with The English Consort and Harry Bicket, Monteverdi Vespers and Bach St Matthew Passion with Dunedin Consort and John Butt, Handel Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with Croatian Barokk Ensemble (Lawrence Cummings), Bach B Minor Mass with Münchener Motettenchor (Benedikt Haag), and Haydn's Die Schöpfung with Les Arts Florissants (William Christie) in New York. He also took part in a tour of Handel's Semele with Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner which was semi-staged and included his debut at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

Hugo’s opera roles to date include Septimius in Theodora for Potsdamer Winteroper, Jupiter Semele with Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (Yu Long), Indian Boy and Fame in Purcell The Indian Queen with Opera de Lille and Emmanuelle Haïm as well as concert performance of the composer’s King Arthur with The Gabrieli Consort and Vox Luminis; Eurimaco Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Lucius in the premiere of Georgio Battistelli Julius Caesar directed by Robert Carson at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

Hugo is a keen song recitalist, a former Britten-Pears young artist, and was on the ‘Rising Stars’ scheme with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with whom he has collaborated many times.

Hugo grew up in Cambridge where he sang as a chorister in Great St Mary’s Church Choir. He then studied the clarinet through school after which he joined the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge as a tenor. In 2014 he graduated with an honours degree in Music from the University of Durham.

Hailed by the Ottawa Citizen as a singer possessing “…an instrument of rare beauty, majestic and commanding from the bottom of his range to the top…”, bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus is frequently heard with leading orchestras and opera companies in Canada and abroad.

His operatic roles include Figaro and the Count (Le nozze di Figaro), Leporello (Don Giovanni), Colline (La Bohème), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Alidoro (La Cenerentola), Albert (Werther), Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress), Collatinus (The Rape of Lucretia), Talbot (Maria Stuarda), Sprecher (Die Zauberflöte), Masetto (Don Giovanni) and Angelotti (Tosca). He has been engaged by the Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, L’Opéra de Montréal, Opera Atelier, Pacific Opera Victoria, Edmonton Opera, Opera Columbus, Opera Hamilton and Against the Grain Theatre.

A prize winner at the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio Solo Competition, hosted by the Oratorio Society of New York, Mr. Hegedus’ extensive concert experience includes appearances with the Vancouver and Seattle Symphonies (Mozart’s Requiem) , Winnipeg Symphony (Haydn’s Creation), the Grant Park Festival (Dvorak’s The Spectre’s Bride, Brahms’ Requiem), l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Bernstein’s A Quiet Place), the Florida Orchestra (Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9), the Aldeburgh Festival (Bach’s B-minor Mass) and the l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec (Bach’s Magnificat).

Stephen has performed Handel’s Messiah with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Naples Philharmonic and Victoria Symphony.

Recent appearances include Handel’s Messiah with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, an all Bach program with the Orchestre Symphonique du Montréal and Colline in Puccini’s La Bohème with the Orchestre Symphonique de Trois-Rivières.

This season he will perform Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Grand Philharmonic Choir, Messiah with Victoria Symphony, Haydn’s Creation with Vancouver Symphony and Bruckner’s Te Deum with the Calgary Philharmonic.

A finalist at Placido Domingo’s Operalia, Stephen made his Carnegie Hall debut singing Bach’s Mass in B-minor with the Oratorio Society of New York and later returned for Handel’s Messiah as well as with Les Violons du Roy.

Created in 1985 by founding conductor and music director Bernard Labadie, La Chapelle de Québec is one of North America’s premiere voice ensembles. The group is made up exclusively of professional singers who are hand picked from all over Canada. This unique chamber choir specializes in the choral/orchestral repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries. The choir performs regularly with its other half, chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy, and as a guest choir with some of the finest orchestras in North America. Its  interpretations of the oratorios, requiems, masses, and cantatas of Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn, as well as Fauré and Duruflé, are frequently hailed in the Canadian and international press.

La Chapelle de Québec is heard regularly at Palais Montcalm in Quebec City and Maison symphonique in Montreal, as well as at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at Carnegie Hall with Les Violons du Roy and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and in Ottawa with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. The choir’s concerts are often broadcast by the CBC and Radio-Canada in Canada and by National Public Radio in the United States.

La Chapelle de Québec is also known for its role in Chemin de Noël, an annual event that brings music lovers from throughout the Québec City region together every December.