Margaux Blanchard

Margaux Blanchard is firmly rooted in her time, developing a global artistic project, ranging from performance to
transmission, and pursuing a career as a conductor, soloist and chamber musician.
Her relationship with the stage was established at an early age. Training in singing, dance and keyboard, from piano to harpsichord, laid the foundations for her career. As a child, she discovered and learned to play the treble and bass viol with Ariane Maurette at the CRR in Paris, and received advice from Jordi Savall, Marianne Muller and Jérôme Hantaï. After completing a double degree in piano and viola da gamba at the highest level, she decided to take up the viol in the class of the Italian gambist Paolo Pandolfo at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, graduating in 2009 amongst the youngest ever to do so.
With an interest in the theatre and a fascination for opera, she naturally turned to coaching singers during her studies. Spotted by the Argentinian conductor Leonardo García Alarcón, she joined the continuo of Cappella Mediterranea in 2007, exploring with him the operas and oratorios of Monteverdi, Cavalli, Draghi, Sacrati, Falvetti…
At the same time, she founded her ensemble Les Ombres, which she co-directs with flautist Sylvain Sartre, and explores the French Baroque operatic repertoire in close collaboration with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles and Château de Versailles Spectacles. Initially with Ambronay Éditions, then with Mirare, they recorded works emblematic of their aesthetic, such as Les Nations and the Leçons de Ténèbres by François Couperin, the Quatuors Parisiens by Georg Philipp Telemann, and the critically acclaimed Bach-Abel Society disc.
Her career as a soloist has been nourished by unusual musical experiences: She played the stage figure in Georges Benjamin’s contemporary opera Written on skin, created the incidental music for the children’s show Icare, played a musical dream in the opera Alcyone, and a cabaret musician in Les Indes Galantes, in collaboration with directors Benjamin Lazar, Guillaume Barbot, Louise Moaty and Clément Cogitore, at the Cologne Opera, Opéra Comique, Opéra royal de Versailles and Opéra Bastille. She is a regular guest of the Gürzenich Orchester in Cologne, conducted by François- Xavier Roth, and of the Radio France orchestra, conducted by Alarcón, to play the eloquent solo parts in Bach’s Passions.
She is passionate about sharing her skills and knowledge with soloists at the Academy of the Paris Opera and with the Jeune Orchestre Baroque Européen founded by Les Ombres.