Les Plaisirs de Versailles

For well over a decade, James Johnstone has led collaborations between the Vocal and Historical Performance departments at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, performing sacred and secular chamber cantatas from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as long as they are not by Bach!

As well appearing at Guildhall, the Cantata Project are regular visitors to London International Festival of Baroque Music and Hatchlands Park and have appeared in the Spitalfields and London Handel festivals.

For this project they are joined for the first time by vocalists from the Academy of Ancient Music. Guildhall is proud of its long-standing association with AAM; many of AAM’s members are Guildhall School alumni and professors. Side-by-side performance projects are a highlight of students’ annual calendars; following two years of operatic collaborations for Handel's Alcina and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, this project expands the relationship to much more intimate music.

Programme:
Robert de Visée Prelude
Michel Lambert Ma bergère
Jean Henry d’Anglebert Prelude
Michel Lambert Ombre de mon amant; Vos mespris chaques jour
Marc-Antoine Charpentier Le Reniement de St Pierre
Marc-Antoine Charpentier Les Plaisirs de Versailles