William Christie

Harpsichordist, conductor, and musicologist William Christie was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1944 and studied music at Harvard and Yale Universities. In 1971, he settled in France and began performing across Europe. A determining moment in his career came in 1979 with the founding of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants, through which Christie has devoted himself above all to the repertoire of the French Baroque, from Charpentier to Rameau. Since the landmark 1987 production of Lully’s Atys at the Opéra Comique in Paris, staged opera has become a regular feature of his work – not only in Paris but also at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, where Christie has conducted operas from Monteverdi to Mozart. He has led works by Handel and Rameau at the Glyndebourne Festival and, most recently, performed Handel’s Semele at Zurich Opera, Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Monteverdi’s Poppea at the Salzburg Festival, and, in 2024, Charpentier’s Médée at the Opéra national de Paris. In the summer of 2025, he undertook a tour of France, Spain, and Germany with Les Arts Florissants, presenting Handel’s Il trinfo del tempo e del disinganno. Christie’s commitment to education has long been central to his work. In 2002, he founded Le Jardin des Voix, an academy for young singers based in Caen. Since 2007, he has also given masterclasses at the Juilliard School in New York, and in 2021, together with Les Arts Florissants, he launched the “Arts Flo Masterclasses” at his estate in the Vendée region of France, where he has additionally been hosting the festival “Dans les Jardins de William Christie” since 2012. In 2018, he donated his entire estate to the William Christie – Les Arts Florissants Foundation. His work is documented by more than 100 recordings, many of them award-winning. Christie became a French citizen in 1995. He is a Commander of the Legion of Honor and of the Order of Arts and Letters and was appointed a Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 27 August 1996 with Les Arts Florissants in works by Sigismondo d’India and Claudio Monteverdi.

July 2025