A flourishing future!

Paul Agnew, musical co-director of Les Arts Florissants

With this “four hands” leadership, William Christie and Paul Agnew will jointly shape the future of Les Arts Florissants, focused on their passions for baroque-inspired artistic creation, transmission and heritage.

Les Arts Florissants are an accredited public interest organisation and hold the ‘Centre Culturel de rencontre’ label (recognising heritage sites offering rich cultural programming). They share their activities between three bases:

• A remarkable heritage site in Thiré (Vendée-Pays de la Loire), where the Quartier des Artistes and gardens are registered historic monuments, and home to two festivals, the academy of Le Jardin des Voix, a range of educational initiatives and a new program of masterclasses launched in 2020,
• A residency at the Philharmonie de Paris, renewed for 5 years, involving concerts and performances, educational activities and collaborations with the Musée de la musique,
• A presence in New York, notably through a special partnership with the Juilliard School.

The major international tours are an another aspect of the Ensemble, as important today as ever, as the successful collaboration with harmonia mundi international label.

Les Arts Florissants in figures

• More than 100 concerts around the world each season, 30 to 50% of which take place abroad 
• More than 240 days of residency in Thiré, with the participation of some 100 artists, gardeners, landscapers, specialists in baroque art, etc.
• 2 festivals in Vendée-Pays de la Loire, drawing more than 10 000 visitors each year,
• Nearly 1 000 children and teens per year taking part in the educational workshops and cultural actions