William Christie

William Christie has long stood among the foremost conductors and keyboardists advancing the early music movement, where his efforts have proven especially decisive in reclaiming opera and French repertoire for the Baroque canon. As harpsichordist and director of Les Arts Florissants, he has maintained a recording career that began in 1980 and delves thoroughly into French Baroque music while encompassing further stylistic areas. During 2024 he contributed to the album Bill & Friends together with several younger musicians he had guided.

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1944, Christie pursued piano and organ studies in his youth. He earned an art history degree from Harvard University before turning to music for graduate work at the Yale School of Music, where his instructor was the pioneering harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick, renowned for his rediscovery and detailed examination of Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas. In 1971 Christie relocated to France to evade the U.S. military draft, later acquiring French citizenship and receiving membership in the Legion of Honor. Between 1971 and 1975 he took part in premieres of compositions by Luciano Berio and Morton Feldman while performing with the Five Centuries Ensemble; from 1976 to 1980 he served as keyboardist for Concerto Vocale under the direction of René Jacobs.

Christie established Les Arts Florissants in 1979 as an ensemble focused on French, English, and Italian music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The group began its recording activity almost at once with the release of Moulinié: Le Cantique de Moÿse. He has played a central role in reviving the demanding idiom of French Baroque opera, marked by its specialized declamatory manner, while also bringing to light substantial neglected portions of French Baroque choral literature. In collaboration with prominent stage designers and choreographers, Christie has achieved particular distinction with the operas of Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jean-Philippe Rameau, works that formed core elements of the operatic repertory during their era yet later fell into obscurity. An additional dimension of his achievement lies in the education of younger performers, first through his professorship at the Paris Conservatoire from 1982 to 1995 and subsequently through leadership of the training program Le Jardin des Voix, whose emerging singers have appeared on many of his recordings.

Since 1994 Christie and Les Arts Florissants have recorded for the Erato label, beginning that year with the ensemble’s account of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine (the Vespers of 1610). The group has also issued recordings on Harmonia Mundi and has continued working with both labels into the early 2020s. His discography, encompassing at least 120 albums, stands unmatched in scale among conductors active in the historical-performance sphere. This output gains further distinction from the command it demonstrates over unfamiliar repertory: although certain releases, such as the 2017 interpretation of Bach’s Mass in B minor, BWV 232, address familiar works, the greater part involves previously unrecorded French operas and choral pieces for which no performing tradition existed. In 1992 alone the ensemble issued eight new albums, each devoted to previously obscure material.

The pandemic year 2021 brought two further Christie releases on Harmonia Mundi: N’esperez plus mes yeux: Airs sérieux et à boire, Vol. 3, performed with Les Arts Florissants, and Générations: Senaillé, LeClair - Sonates pour violon et clavecin, which featured the conductor at the harpsichord alongside violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte. Remaining energetically productive in his eighth decade, Christie issued four albums during 2024; among them, Bill & Friends united him on keyboards with various younger musicians he had trained.