Carnegie Hall

(New York, NY, April 3, 2019)—Bernard Labadie leads Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec in Bach’s Mass in B Minor on Tuesday, May 7 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. Soloists for the program include soprano Lydia Teuscher, countertenor Iestyn Davies, tenor Robin Tritschler, and bass-baritone Matthew Brook.

The concert will be broadcast live on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York as part of the Carnegie Hall Live radio broadcast and digital series, also heard by listeners worldwide via wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr. Produced by WQXR and Carnegie Hall and co-hosted by WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon and Clemency Burton-Hill, select Carnegie Hall Live broadcasts featured throughout the season include special digital access to the broadcast team from backstage and in the control room, connecting national and international fans to the music and to each other.

About the Artists 
Les Violons du Roy takes its name from the celebrated court orchestra of the French kings. It was founded in 1984 by Bernard Labadie and continues under music director Jonathan Cohen to explore the nearly boundless repertoire of music for chamber orchestra in performances matched as closely as possible to the period of each work’s composition. Its minimum 15-member complement plays modern instruments, albeit with period bows for Baroque and Classical music, and its interpretations are deeply informed by the latest research on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice. The repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries receives similar attention and figures regularly on the orchestra’s programs.

Les Violons du Roy is at the heart of the music scene in Quebec City and a regular feature on the Montreal cultural calendar. The orchestra is known throughout North America thanks to the many broadcasts of its concerts and recordings on CBC/Radio-Canada and NPR. The ensemble makes regular visits to New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and has performed dozens of times in Europe at such legendary venues as the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Philharmonie in Berlin.

Les Violons du Roy’s discography boasts 32 titles, winning three JUNO Awards and one Félix Award. The ensemble has made 12 albums with Dorian Recordings and 11 with ATMA Classique. Les Violons du Roy has also released four albums on Virgin Classics (now Warner Classics) with soloists Vivica Genaux, Truls Mørk, and Alexandre Tharaud.

Created in 1985 by founding conductor and music director Bernard Labadie, La Chapelle de Québec is one of North America’s premiere voice ensembles. The group is made up exclusively of professional singers who are handpicked from all over Canada. This unique chamber choir specializes in the choral/orchestral repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries. The choir performs regularly with its other half, chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy, and as a guest choir with some of the finest orchestras in North America. Its interpretations of the oratorios, requiems, masses, and cantatas of Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn, as well as Fauré and Duruflé, are frequently hailed in the Canadian and international press.

La Chapelle de Québec is heard regularly at Palais Montcalm in Quebec City and Maison symphonique in Montreal, as well as at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at Carnegie Hall with Les Violons du Roy and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and in Ottawa with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. The choir’s concerts are often broadcast by the CBC and Radio-Canada in Canada and by National Public Radio in the United States.

La Chapelle de Québec is also known for its role in Chemin de Noël, an annual event that brings music lovers from throughout the Québec City region together every December.

Bernard Labadie, an internationally recognized specialist in repertoire of the 17th through the early 19th centuries, is the founding conductor of Les Violons du Roy. He was the ensemble’s music director from 1984 - 2014 and remains the music director of the choir La Chapelle de Québec, which he founded in 1985. He has toured to Europe and North and South America as the head of both ensembles, performing with them at some of the world’s greatest concert halls, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, Barbican Centre, Philharmonie Berlin, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Palais des Beaux-Arts, as well as the major festivals of Salzburg, Bergen, Rheingau, and Schleswig-Holstein.

In 2017, Mr. Labadie was named principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City, beginning in the 2018–2019 season. As such, he conducts the orchestra’s annual concert series at Carnegie Hall. In great demand as a guest conductor, Mr. Labadie makes frequent appearances with major North American and European orchestras. In the 2017–2018 season alone, he performed with The Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Lyon, and NAC Orchestra. Since the start of his international career in the late 1990s, he has also made appearances with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, as well as other major orchestras across the US.

Program Information

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 8:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
LES VIOLONS DU ROY
LA CHAPELLE DE QUÉBEC
Bernard Labadie, Founding Conductor and Music Director of La Chapelle de Québec
Lydia Teuscher, Soprano
Iestyn Davies, Countertenor
Robin Tritschler, Tenor
Matthew Brook, Bass-Baritone

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Mass in B Minor

Pre-concert talk at 7 PM with Thomas Forrest Kelly, Morton B. Knafel Research Professor of Music, Harvard University.

This concert is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for choral music established by S. Donald Sussman in memory of Judith Arron and Robert Shaw.

Public support for Carnegie Hall Live on WQXR is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Les Violons du Roy gratefully acknowledges the support of Gestion Marthe Bourgeois Ltée and Fondation des Violons du Roy in the presentation of this performance.

Bank of America is the Proud Season Sponsor of Carnegie Hall. 

Photo at top © 2009 Richard Termine.

Ticket Information

Tickets priced $32–$105, are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 West 57th Street, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website, carnegiehall.org.

For Carnegie Hall Corporation presentations taking place in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, a limited number of seats, priced at $10, will be available day-of-concert beginning at 11:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday and 12:00 noon on Sunday until one hour before the performance or until supply lasts. The exceptions are Carnegie Hall Family Concerts and gala events. These $10 tickets are available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis at the Carnegie Hall Box Office only. There is a two-ticket limit per customer.

In addition, for all Carnegie Hall presentations in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage a limited number of partial view (seats with obstructed or limited sight lines or restricted leg room) will be sold for 50% of the full price. For more information on this and other discount ticket programs, including those for students, Notables members, and Bank of America customers, visit carnegiehall.org/discounts. Artists, programs, and prices are subject to change.