Hervé Niquet

Hervé Niquet stands out among musicians for combining the roles of composer, singer, and conductor with equal success, rarely seen in colleagues who limit themselves to fewer disciplines. Beyond leading instrumental groups, he has guided choral ensembles throughout his career and earned major commissions as a composer, among them one requested by Princess Caroline of Monaco. Although he is most often linked with French Baroque repertoire, particularly works by Boismortier, Charpentier, and Rameau, his interests extend well beyond that sphere; he has conducted and recorded music by Handel and Purcell while also exploring pieces from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by composers such as Chabrier, Gounod, and Poulenc. In 1987 he established Le Concert Spirituel, the ensemble with which he remains most closely identified, and later created the Baroque orchestra La Nouvele Sinfonie; since 2022 he has served as artistic director of the Festival de Saintes. With Le Concert Spirituel he released a recording of Charpentier’s Médée in 2024.

Born on October 28, 1957, Niquet spent his childhood in Abbeville, France. After thorough training in harpsichord, organ, composition, conducting, and singing, he became chorus master at the Paris Opéra in 1980. The year 1985 proved decisive: he received Princess Caroline’s commission for the ballet 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman and joined Les Arts Florissants as a tenor. At the same time he expanded his conducting activities, directing leading European ensembles chiefly in Baroque programs. He modeled the name of Le Concert Spirituel on the historic Paris ensemble that existed from 1725 to 1790; the modern group, comprising roughly fifty musicians, quickly earned recognition as one of Europe’s premier Baroque orchestras.

In 2002 Niquet founded the Montreal-based La Nouvele Sinfonie, an ensemble of about forty players devoted, like its predecessor, to French Baroque literature. Through his association with the Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de Musique Romantique Française he has revived forgotten operas, among them Félicien David’s Herculanum and Fromental Halévy’s La Reine de Chypre. He held the post of music director with the Vlaams Radiokoor from 2011 to 2019 and served as artistic director of the Festival de l’Abbaye de Saint-Riquier Baie de Somme from 2013 to 2017.

Onstage and in the studio Niquet frequently appears both as conductor and as harpsichordist or organist. Since the 1980s his performances have appeared on numerous recordings issued by labels including EMI, Naïve, and Naxos, often with him in a featured capacity. In 2016 the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra and Vlaams Radiokoor under his direction received an ECHO Klassik award for their recording of David’s Herculanum. He led Le Concert Spirituel in a 2021 Château de Versailles recording of Mozart’s La Flûte Enchantée. The following year he was appointed artistic director of the Festival de Saintes in Saintes, France. In 2024 he directed Le Concert Spirituel, with Véronique Gens and Cyrille Dubois among the principals, in another account of Charpentier’s Médée and also accompanied Gens on her solo release Paysage, conducting the Munich Radio Orchestra.