Inspired by the intimate conviction of their founder, flutist and pioneering researcher François Lazarevitch, Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien have been evolving freely along Baroque paths since 2006, combining oral and written sources. Their shared affinity with traditional musicians and repertoires enriched their first projects and soon began to resonate with a whole archipelago of ancient and Baroque classical music – the same inventive sense of colour, the same energy that springs from danced movement, the same poetic sensibility. Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien revive slumbering musical resources – but not only – in an approach that is both erudite and intuitive, rooted in folk practices and filtered through a demanding, virtuoso, and passionate appropriation. Everything about this alchemy is unique and identifies the ensemble even more than the reference to the brotherhood of dancers and violinists that gives it its name: the relief and elegance of the lines, the flexibility of the swaying phrasings, the richness of a rare ancient instruments from which flutes and musettes emerge, the inner fire that electrifies even the best-known works by Bach, Vivaldi, or Purcell, the naturalness of expression that makes each interpretation so familiar and yet so new. In the course of concerts and tours in France, Europe, and America – soon at Le Volcan-Scène nationale du Havre where the ensemble is in residence, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Salle Cortot (Paris), La Seine Musicale, the Théâtre de Caen, the Grands concerts à Lyon, the Musicales de Normandie… – and sixteen CDs labelled Alpha Classics, Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien have established a strong presence on the French and international scenes, winning unanimous acclaim from the public and specialist press alike. Its most recent recordings for Alpha Classics are Beauté barbare with works by Georg Philipp Telemann inspired by the folk music of Eastern Europe, and The Queen’s Delight: English songs and country dances from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien are funded by the French Ministry of Culture – DRAC de Normandie and are supported by the Région Normandie and the City of Le Havre.
François Lazarevitch artistic direction
François Lazarevitch discovered early music and the flute with pioneers such as Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume, Barthold Kuijken, and Pierre Séchet. In parallel, he also developed a passion for the Irish flute, playing music based on oral transmission with artists who still cultivate old local traditions today. These fruitful encounters and explorations have helped him blaze his own trail, untrodden and demanding, on which he has progressed by multiplying the strings to his bow: today, he divides his time with equal virtuosity between the flute and the musette, whose pastoral timbre has become emblematic of the ensemble Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, founded by the artist in 2006. In addition to directing the ensemble currently in residence at Le Volcan-Scène nationale in Le Havre, François Lazarevitch performs on French and international music scenes. He has recorded more than a dozen albums for Alpha Classics, featuring innovative repertoire highly acclaimed by critics. The most recent of these, Beauté barbare, devoted to the Polish folk music-inspired works by G.P. Telemann, is the fruit of the artist’s interest in the music of Eastern Europe. His interpretations of the Vivaldi concertos, the Bach flute sonatas (hailed as “the pinnacle of the [ensemble’s] discography” and honoured with Classica magazine’s Choc award), and the C.P.E. Bach sonatas in duo with Justin Taylor surprise and seduce with eloquence, invention, and finesse of phrasing and ornamentation. François Lazarevitch is currently working on orchestral and operatic repertoire. In 2023, with the ensemble Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien and the soprano Julie Roset, he presented Handel’s Sweet bird (opera arias and concertos), as well as the complete Mozart flute concertos and John Blow’s Ode on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell. He has also enriched his experience by collaborating with Les Arts Florissants, Les Talents Lyriques and La Fonte Musica, as well as with dancers, choreographers, stage directors, and contemporary composers. In 2020, he commissioned Gérard Pesson, Philippe Hersant, and Vincent Bouchot to create Trilogue. A keen collector and researcher of instruments, he also publishes the scores of forgotten repertoires that he comes across. He is a certified teacher of early and traditional music, runs the Académie des Musiciens de Saint-Julien, and teaches Baroque transverse flute, recorder, and musette at the Conservatoire de Versailles. An associate artist at the Conservatoire du Havre, he also holds the French distinction of Order of Arts and Letters.