Vincent Dumestre

Vincent Dumestre has been the artistic director of the Misteria Paschalia Festival since 2024.

His taste for the arts and collective adventures, his creative sense of baroque aesthetics and his explorer’s flame naturally led Vincent Dumestre to explore the repertoires of the 17th and 18th centuries and to create his tailor-made ensemble, Le Poème Harmonique. Vincent Dumestre is now one of the most inventive and versatile architects of the baroque revival, directing orchestras, choirs, musical seasons, competitions and festivals, while maintaining regular performances on his most-loved instruments, the plucked strings.

Vincent Dumestre made his debut in concert and on record alongside the pioneering musicians who first sought to discover, understand and revive this music from another era. A graduate of the École du Louvre (art history) and the École Normale de Musique de Paris (classical guitar), he went on to study lute, baroque guitar and theorbo with Hopkinson Smith, Eugène Ferré and Rolf Lislevand. He performed with the Ricercar Consort, La Grande Écurie & La Chambre du Roy, Hespèrion XX and La Simphonie du Marais before founding Le Poème Harmonique in 1998. Since then, through research, reconstructions, and the creating of both familiar and unexpected programmes, he has offered truly original creations that have broadened the horizons of vocal and instrumental music, bringing it to a wider audience and setting new standard in the field. 

On the opera stage, his productions are marked by a distinctive sound and visual aesthetic, born from collaborations with artists from diverse disciplines: puppeteers (Mimmo Cuticchio), theatre directors (Omar Porras, Benjamin Lazar, Cécile Roussat), and even circus performers (Mathurin Bolze). 

Sought after at the world’s leading baroque music venues with Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre also devotes part of his work to Normandy, the region where his ensemble is based, and where he is director of the Concours Corneille – international baroque singing competition, and the Nouvelles Voix en Normandie tour.  

Following the remarkable success of the 2017 edition which he programmed, Vincent Dumestre was invited by the city of Krakow to assume the artistic direction of the Misteria Paschalia festival in 2024, a global reference for baroque music during the Easter season. He is also the artistic director of the Saisons baroques du Jura. 

Vincent Dumestre is an Officer of the National Order of Arts and Letters and a Knight of the National Order of Merit.