Biography
Dominique Vellard emerged as a central presence in France’s historically informed early-music movement, launching his career in the late 1970s when such repertoire remained uncommon. As founder and director of the Ensemble Gilles Binchois, he has also performed as singer and lutenist while working as arranger, composer, and musicologist. Together with the ensemble he has built an extensive discography that stretches back to the 1980s, chiefly for the Glossa and Evidence Classics imprints; their most recent project, Timor Mortis, appeared in 2024.
Vellard entered the world in France in 1953. His initial studies took place in Versailles, beginning as a chorister at the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame before continuing at the Versailles Conservatory. Once his fascination with early music took hold, he established the Ensemble Gilles Binchois—distinct from Britain’s Binchois Consort—and dedicated it to the Burgundian composer who died in 1460. The ensemble maintains a core of roughly ten voices and frequently performs a cappella, though it expands when needed with additional singers and instrumentalists, among them Vellard’s lute. Its programs have centered on the namesake composer as well as other French music from the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, encompassing Guillaume de Machaut, Guillaume Dufay, and more obscure figures such as Jehannot de l’Escurel. The group has traveled throughout France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and several Eastern European countries. Vellard and the ensemble stand out for the breadth of their recorded output, which began in 1982 with a program of chant and continued through associations with Virgin, Cantus, Glossa, and Evidence Classics. One of his first digital-era releases was the 1987 album Dufay, Binchois: Ballades, Rondeaux, Lamentation.
In the twenty-first century the Ensemble Gilles Binchois has presented Vellard’s own compositions, which blend Indian elements with those of European medieval music. He has composed a mass and numerous smaller vocal pieces, several of which appeared on the 2007 Glossa release Vox nostra resonet. For Evidence Classics he directed the group in Messes de Barcelone et d’Apt in 2019, examining medieval music from those Spanish and Provençal centers. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vellard and the ensemble maintained a steady schedule, issuing an annual album on Evidence Classics and, in 2022, venturing into the nineteenth century with Franz Liszt: Septem Sacramenta. Their 2024 Evidence Classics recording, Timor Mortis, gathers little-known Renaissance works on the subject of death.
Vellard entered the world in France in 1953. His initial studies took place in Versailles, beginning as a chorister at the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame before continuing at the Versailles Conservatory. Once his fascination with early music took hold, he established the Ensemble Gilles Binchois—distinct from Britain’s Binchois Consort—and dedicated it to the Burgundian composer who died in 1460. The ensemble maintains a core of roughly ten voices and frequently performs a cappella, though it expands when needed with additional singers and instrumentalists, among them Vellard’s lute. Its programs have centered on the namesake composer as well as other French music from the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, encompassing Guillaume de Machaut, Guillaume Dufay, and more obscure figures such as Jehannot de l’Escurel. The group has traveled throughout France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and several Eastern European countries. Vellard and the ensemble stand out for the breadth of their recorded output, which began in 1982 with a program of chant and continued through associations with Virgin, Cantus, Glossa, and Evidence Classics. One of his first digital-era releases was the 1987 album Dufay, Binchois: Ballades, Rondeaux, Lamentation.
In the twenty-first century the Ensemble Gilles Binchois has presented Vellard’s own compositions, which blend Indian elements with those of European medieval music. He has composed a mass and numerous smaller vocal pieces, several of which appeared on the 2007 Glossa release Vox nostra resonet. For Evidence Classics he directed the group in Messes de Barcelone et d’Apt in 2019, examining medieval music from those Spanish and Provençal centers. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vellard and the ensemble maintained a steady schedule, issuing an annual album on Evidence Classics and, in 2022, venturing into the nineteenth century with Franz Liszt: Septem Sacramenta. Their 2024 Evidence Classics recording, Timor Mortis, gathers little-known Renaissance works on the subject of death.
Albums
