The Young European Baroque Orchestra: Inside the Residency in Uzès

Established by the ensemble Les Ombres and the Festival des Nuits Musicales d’Uzès to help launch the careers of emerging musicians through an immersion in historically informed performance, the Jeune Orchestre Baroque Européen (JOBE) annually gathers young instrumentalists from across Europe under the direction of French flautist and conductor Sylvain Sartre of Les Ombres, working together on period instruments according to historical performance practice. Its mission is to highlight the enduring vitality of early music while preparing the next generation of Baroque performers. This year’s project followed Antonio de Literes’ zarzuela Los Elementos, presented in 2025, with a new production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Developed over the course of a mid-July residency at the Nuits Musicales d’Uzès under the guidance of Sylvain Sartre and a team of instrumental and vocal mentors, the production provided these emerging artists with an invaluable stage in their professional development.

In Uzès, an Incubator for Young Baroque Musicians

Not far from the famous Pont du Gard, in the South of France, the small town of Uzès, the oldest Duchy in France in the 16th century, is renowned for its rich architectural heritage and, today, for a newly inaugurated cultural venue: L’Ombrière – Pays d’Uzès, which features a large performance space known as La Fabrique and an intimate rehearsal studio, Le Labo. It was within this new venue that Uzès once again hosted, in mid-July as part of its Nuits Musicales festival, the residency of the Young European Baroque Orchestra (JOBE), where Sylvain Sartre prepared Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Bathed in peaceful silence, the setting provided an ideal environment for exploration, learning, and artistic transmission for JOBE, a professional development programme created in the wake of the Covid pandemic for young musicians and singers. While the generation of Margaux Blanchard and Sylvain Sartre (the two artistic directors of the ensemble Les Ombres) benefited from the remarkable wealth of academies—such as Ambronay, with William Christie or Hervé Niquet—the two musicians felt it had become urgent to offer undergraduate and master’s students a first orchestral and operatic experience. In short, it’s a genuine incubator for young talent, supported by seasoned professionals committed to sharing their expertise. As the projects succeed one another, lasting professional relationships naturally take shape: the first edition was purely instrumental, while subsequent ones quickly expanded to include singers.

Sixteen European Artists Put to the Test on Stage

In order to meet the expectations of the opening evening of the Nuits Musicales, these young musicians on the threshold of professional life spared neither their effort nor their talent. French, German, Russian, Spanish, and English, and drawn from eight European conservatoires and higher education institutions—the Paris and Lyon Conservatoires (CNSMD), the Schola Cantorum Basel, the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, Barcelona’s ESMUC, the Berlin University of the Arts, the Paris CRR, the CMBV, and the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris—these sixteen young artists were selected from more than four hundred applicants. They will continue their journey at the Festival of Sylvanès, where they will present the same production. It will be a valuable experience in a different acoustic setting and before a new audience, further enriching their development while giving this demanding score a second life. For many of these young artists, performing in two contrasting venues is a genuine gateway to professional life. It allows them to adapt their playing to different stages and acoustics, cultivating the versatility that has become indispensable for today’s freelance Baroque musicians.

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