Sébastien Daucé

The organist and harpsichordist Sébastien Daucé is lit up with the urge to revive an abundant yet little-known repertory of the sacred and secular music of the 17th-century France.

It was during his training at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Lyon that he met the future members of Ensemble Correspondances. Key influences among his teachers were Françoise Lengellé and Yves Rechsteiner. Initially in demand as a continuo player and vocal répétiteur (with the Ensemble Pygmalion, the Festival in Aix-en-Provence, the Radio France Maîtrise children’s choir and Orchestre Philharmonique among others), he formed the Ensemble Correspondances in Lyon in 2009, assembling around him singers and instrumentalists with a passion for the French sacred repertory of the Grand Siècle.

With this ensemble, which he directs from the harpsichord or the organ, he now travels throughout France and around the world, and frequently broadcasts on radio.

Sébastien Daucé and Correspondances are in residence at the théâtre de Caen, where they developed their first stage projects (Trois Femmes directed by Vincent Huguet in 2016, Le Ballet Royal de la Nuit directed by Francesca Lattuada in November 2017) and are associate artists at the Opéra and Chapelle of the Château de Versailles, and at the Louvre Museum. Significant points in ensemble’s career were tours to Japan, Colombia, the United States and China, alongside regular appearance in Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany, Benelux, Italy, Poland).

Its exploration of a little-performed and often unpublished repertory has led, with the support of the Harmonia Mundi label, a pioneer of the Baroque repertory in many aspects, to a discography of seventeen recordings that have attracted considerable press attention and have received such distinctions as the Diapason d’Or of the Year, ffff de Télérama, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Choc of the Year de Classica, German Record Critics’ Award and IRR Outstanding.

Correspondances now enjoy international recognition: at the ECHO Preis ceremony at the Berlin Konzerthaus in 2016, the ensemble won the awards in the Best World Premiere Recording (for Le Concert Royal de la Nuit) and the Best Young Conductor of the Year categories, while the Australian Limelight magazine named the Le Concert Royal de la Nuit the Operatic Recording of 2016.

Alongside his activities as a performing musician, Sébastien Daucé works with the leading scholars of the 17th-century music, regularly publishing articles on the topic and taking part in important projects. Passionately interested in questions of musical style, he edits the music that makes up the ensemble’s repertory, going so far as to recompose pieces when necessary, as was the case with Le Ballet Royal de la Nuit. He has been teaching at Le Pôle supérieur d’enseignement artistique de Paris since 2012. In 2018, he was guest artistic director of the London Festival of Baroque Music.