Jonathan Cohen, Mozart et l'amitié

Cellist and harpsichordist Jonathan Cohen is one of the most accomplished and sought-after British musicians of his generation. A fervent promoter of chamber music, he has mastered and explored repertoires ranging from baroque opera to the classical symphony. Cohen gained widespread recognition as associate conductor of Les Arts Florissants and, from 2010, as founder and artistic director of the Arcangelo ensemble. He has worked with Les Violons du Roy since 2014 and became their musical director in 2018. He also serves as artistic director of the Tetbury Music Festival and Boston’s prestigious Handel and Haydn Society.

A much-in-demand guest conductor, Cohen has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic with numerous ensembles, including the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Liège Royal Philharmonic, the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, the New York Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

Throughout the 24-25 season, he returns to Kammerorchester Basel and directs performances of St Matthew Passion with both Rotterdam Philharmonic and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He returns to Glyndebourne Festival for a revival of Barrie Kosky’s production of Handel Saul. He leads both Handel and Haydn Society and Houston Symphony Orchestra in Messiah, and with Handel and Haydn he also conducts Haydn The Seasons, Mozart Requiem and Beethoven Mass in C.

In addition to his impressive discography of almost 30 works as director of Arcangelo, he has recorded three albums with Les Violons du Roy, all of which have garnered national and international acclaim. His album devoted to Handel and Glass with American countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo earned Les Violons du Roy their first-ever Grammy nomination in 2019. Cohen has introduced several prestigious guest artists to audiences of Les Violons du Roy and has toured three times in Europe and North America with them.

Violist Isaac Chalk received a rich and diverse musical education. In addition to training as an instrumentalist, he studied singing at the Maîtrise des Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal and worked extensively as a choral singer. He is also a graduate of Mozarteum University in Salzburg and of McGill University in Montréal, where he received the prestigious Lloyd Carr-Harris String Scholarship and the Golden Violin Award, Canada’s largest privately-funded music scholarship.

In February 2011, Isaac Chalk made his debut at Toronto’s Koerner Hall performing Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Julian Kuerti. In June 2013, he was named principal viola of Les Violons du Roy and has since performed with the orchestra in its regular series in Quebec City and Montréal, at the Lanaudière Festival, at the Domaine Forget International Festival, and on tour in Canada and internationally. He has also appeared as a soloist with the orchestra on many occasions, most notably in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Anthony Marwood. Isaac Chalk has been generously supported by the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Stéphane Fontaine has been principal clarinet of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec since 2004.

He is a graduate of the Conservatoire de musique de Québec (class of Marie Picard) and DePaul University in Chicago (class of Larry Combs). He is a prizewinner in several Canadian and European competitions, including Dos Hermanas in Spain and Audi-Mozart (Rovereto) in Italy.

Appreciated as a chamber musician, he can be heard at major festivals in Quebec. Also active as a soloist, he performs regularly with the OSQ, as well as being invited by other ensembles, including I Musici de Montréal.

He joined the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne for their tours of Italy, China, Mexico and the United States.

In addition to his musical activities, he has teamed up with Lise Beausoleil in an original dance/clarinet duo, through which they explore the various possibilities for dialogue between their respective disciplines.

Mr. Fontaine is the new incumbent of the clarinet class at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec.

Mélisande McNabney performs keyboard music of all periods, on harpsichord, piano and fortepiano. In August 2015, she received the third prize at the International Competition Musica Antiqua in Bruges. She is a graduate of the Amsterdam Conservatory where she studied harpsichord, continuo and fortepiano in the classes of Bob van Asperen and Richard Egarr. She was granted her Doctorate degree at McGill University in May 2017, under the guidance of Hank Knox and Tom Beghin, thanks to the support of the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships Program.

Mélisande McNabney is regularly invited to play with ensembles such as Les Violons du Roy, Arion Orchestre Baroque, Les Idées heureuses, Theater of Early Music and Ensemble Caprice. She is a member of Pallade Musica and Les Songes, with whom she took part in numerous tours of Canada and the USA. Mélisande McNabney has received scholarships from Canada Council for the Arts, Banff Centre, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and Fonds de recherche société et culture du Québec.