John Eliot Gardiner has just completed a European tour with his new ensemble, Constellation, featuring a Bach trilogy: two cantatas and the Easter Oratorio. A year and a half after his departure from the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra (which he founded in 1964), he reflects on this new musical and human adventure. He will be performing at the Royal Chapel in Versailles on 11 and 12 June.
The ensemble Les Surprises and its founder and musical director, Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas, are celebrating their 15th anniversary in 2026, notably with a new production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, on the bill since February. This emblematic work of the Baroque repertoire is reimagined by the ensemble in an original staged form: an all-female cast, musicians integrated into the action, spoken texts, and a choreographic dimension.
The French ensemble Doulce Mémoire, specializing in Renaissance music, pays tribute to its founder Denis Raisin Dadre, who passed away last October, and opens a new chapter under the leadership of Elsa Frank and Jérémie Papasergio, long-standing collaborators of the founder. A concert at the Opéra de Tours on March 17 will mark both this tribute and the rebirth of the ensemble.
She has been the new artistic director of the Bruges Early Music Festival (Belgium) since January 1, and is the founder of the Sollazzo ensemble. She’s 38. While Bruges is embarking on a new chapter, Sollazzo is taking a decisive step forward with La Flamboyance, a medieval project for twenty musicians to be released on CD in May.
In March 2026, Total Baroque Magazine celebrates its first anniversary. Twelve months of investigations, interviews, and historical features exploring a repertoire that is at once rooted in heritage and deeply contemporary. This anniversary is an opportunity to take stock and share a few perspectives with you.
A mythical opera of the baroque revival in the 1980s, Lully’s Atys returns in 2026 in a radically new version, the result of four years of work by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. Notably, it completely reorganizes the orchestra. Benoît Dratwicki, the centre’s artistic director, tells us the story of this adventure.
For the 14th time, Europe’s musical world gathers in January at the Valletta Baroque Festival in Malta. Rarely-performed works, musicians from every country, a highly international audience. A notable event this year: the city, founded in 1565 by the French knight Jean de La Valette, is hosting a fully staged opera, Pelopida, by the Maltese composer Girolamo Abos.
In Lyon, Franck-Emmanuel Comte and his ensemble Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu explore original paths between early music and other artistic disciplines. A meeting with a conductor whose motto is: explore, reveal, share.
