Akademie Versailles 2023

François Lazarevitch studied early music and playing various types of flutes under Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume, Barthold Kuijken and Pierre Séchet. He also took a liking to the Irish flute and learned traditional Irish music directly where knowledge is still passed on orally and “in situ”. These fruitful encounters and discoveries opened up his own untrodden and challenging path. Today, with equal virtuosity, he divides his time between flutes and the French bagpipes (the Baroque musette), whose pastoral timbre has become emblematic of Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, the ensemble that he founded in 2006. As a leader of this musical group (currently the ensemble in residence of the theatre Le Volcan – Scène Nationale du Havre) he performs on both the French and international music scenes.

He has recorded more than fifteen CDs with groundbreaking content for the Alpha Classics label.His interpretations of concertos by A. Vivaldi and sonatas by J. S. Bach and C. P. E. Bach, which he produced with harpsichordist Justin Taylor, are astonishing in their inventiveness and sophistication of phrasing and ornamentation. Recently, he has also devoted himself to the orchestral and operatic repertoire. With Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien he performed a selection of Handel’s operatic arias this year (with soprano Julia Roset) as well as instrumental concertos at the Théâtre de Caen and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. At the Le Volcan theatre in Le Havre, he was featured as a soloist in Mozart’s flute concertos, accompanied by Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien. The same line-up will also appear at the La Seine Musical Centre as part of the Mozart Maximum festival. François Lazarevitch has also staged John Blow’s Ode on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell, which he will perform with countertenor Tim Mead at the Kromer Festival in Biecz, Poland, and at Le Volcan Theatre in Le Havre (2023). He has recorded the complete Telemann Fantasies (2017, Alpha Classics label, Choc Classica award) and a CD of Jacob van Eyck’s Variations (2021, Alpha Classics label). The new CD of the ensemble Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, “Beauté barbare”, dedicated to Polish and Hanakian music by G. P. Telemann, has led him to turn his attention to the music of Eastern Europe.

François Lazarevitch has also enriched his experience by collaborating with dancers, choreographers, directors and contemporary composers. For the project “Trilogue or the Art of Conversation” (2020), he commissioned works by contemporary composers – G. Pesson, Ph. Hersant and V. Bouchot. A passionate collector of instruments and a scholar, he publishes the scores of newly discovered repertoire; the next publication will be a new translation of G. Tartini’s treatise on ornamentation.

François Lazarevitch holds the CA (Certificat d’aptitude) diploma in early music and the DE (Diplôme d’État) diploma in traditional music, leads the Academy of the Ensemble Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien (two to four courses a year), and teaches traverso flute, recorder flute and Baroque musette at the Conservatoire de Versailles, regularly posts instructional videos on the YouTube channel of Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien (“Le petit traité d’interprétation”) and gives masterclasses and lectures at the Centre de musique Baroque de Versailles and at conservatories in Moscow, Geneva, Baltimore and elsewhere. He is also an associate of the Le Havre Conservatoire. François Lazarevitch is a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.