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Laurence Equilbey is best known as the music director and conductor of the popular chamber choir
Accentus. She has led this Paris-based, 32-member group in both a cappella repertory and orchestral/choral fare, but
Equilbey has also branched out, especially in the new century, regularly leading operatic performances and also conducting such well-known orchestras as the
Orchestre de Paris,
Lyon National Orchestra, and the
Orchestre National de France. In addition, she has expanded the repertory of
Accentus to include transcriptions, offering such disparate fare as
Wagner and
Mahler lieder,
Debussy's Les Angélus,
Prokofiev's "Field of the Dead" from Alexander Nevsky, and many others. In 2012,
Equilbey founded the period-instrument
Insula Orchestra. Her recordings are available from Erato, Naïve, and Naxos, among others. In 2021, she led the
Insula Orchestra in a recording of
Louise Farrenc's Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3.
Equilbey was born in Paris on March 6, 1962. She studied choral conducting with
Eric Ericson at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and also studied at conservatories in Paris and Vienna. Among her later teachers was famed conductor
Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Active mainly as a choral conductor throughout the '80s,
Equilbey founded the chamber choir
Accentus in 1991. Almost from the beginning, the ensemble drew critical acclaim, and its first a cappella recording, a Virgin Classics release of
works by Brahms and Schumann, appeared in 1995. That year,
Equilbey founded a second ensemble, the Jeune Chœur de Paris.
In 2000,
Equilbey was named Music Personality of the Year by the Syndicat Professionnel de la Critique. In November of that year, she took
Accentus on an acclaimed 11-city debut tour of the U.S. In the new century,
Equilbey has been especially active with
Accentus on records, often turning out music to great critical acclaim, as with the 2001 recording of Figure Humaine and other works by
Poulenc and 2007's Liszt's Via Crucis, both issued on the Naïve label. At the 2010 St. Denis Festival (near Paris),
Equilbey led
Accentus in an acclaimed performance of
Fauré's Requiem, recorded live by Medici.
In the orchestral/choral realm,
Equilbey has led performances of works by
Mozart,
Mendelssohn,
Brahms, and scores of others. In opera, she has conducted
Mozart as well as rarely encountered fare like
Britten's Albert Herring.
Equilbey has also conducted many other well-known choirs, including the
Berlin RIAS Kammerchor,
Chapelle Royale, and the
Collegium Vocale Ghent. In 2012, she founded the
Insula Orchestra, a period instrument orchestra focusing on presenting orchestral and choral music from the Baroque through Romantic periods. To that end,
Equilbey led
Accentus and the
Insula Orchestra in a 2014 recording of Mozart's Requiem on Naïve, the orchestra's debut release. On the Erato label,
Equilbey and the
Insula Orchestra issued
Magic Mozart in 2020 and followed with a recording of
Louise Farrenc's Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 in 2021. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke