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William Christie

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

William Christie was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1944 and is a French-American conductor and harpsichordist. He studied art history at Harvard and, from 1966, music at Yale, with the harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick. As a conductor he is self-taught. He taught at Dartmouth College, moved to the United Kingdom in 1970 and to France in 1971, partly out of aversion to the Vietnam War. In 1995 he took French citizenship.

Music and breakthrough

In France he became known for his performances of Baroque music, in particular French Baroque. In 1979 he founded the ensemble Les Arts Florissants, named after the work of the same name by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The great breakthrough came in 1987 with Lully's Atys at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. With the ensemble he recorded many little-known works by Charpentier, often for the first time, and further works by Campra, Couperin, Monteverdi and Rameau. Purcell, Handel and Mozart are also on the programme, including on the 1986 album Purcell: Dido and Aeneas.

Influence

Christie was a professor at the Paris conservatoire from 1982 to 1995 and in 2002 founded Le Jardin des Voix in Caen, an academy for young singers. He also designed the gardens of his home in Thiré, which became a protected monument in 2006. In 2008 he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Christie brought French Baroque back to a large audience in the late twentieth century, with historically informed instruments and theatrical stagings.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Purcell's Dido and Aeneas under Christie and notice the harpsichord and the low strings in the accompaniment. Can you hear how they follow the singers continually?

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists