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The French bass, Jean-François Gardeil, was at the Lettres à l'Université de Toulouse, studied singing at the with the Conservatoire de Lausanne, then at the l'Ecole d'Art Lyrique de l'Opéra de Paris. He was prize-winner of the Académie Ravel, the Internantional Singing Competition of Toulouse and of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation.
Jean-François Gardeil is first of all known as an interpreter of Baroque music. With William Christie and Les Arts Florissants he appeared in many concert tours around the world. He is notable for the principal roles in Atys by Lully at the Opéra Comique, Florence and New York. He was also engaged by Jean-Claude Malgoire, Gustav Leonhardt and Michel Corboz, and quickly builds a significant discography. His lyric repertoire extends today from Mozart, the Italian opera, the French light opera up to contemporary works. This season he will sing variety of roles as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte (national tour), Frederic in Lakmé at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, the count in Les Noszze di Figaro, or Gendarme in Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Francis Poulenc. He has has an important activity as recitalist. With the pianist Billy Eidi, he recently received the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros for their integral melodies of Arthur Honegger. Moreover, he has just made the first recording of the cycle of Darius Milhaud Tristesses on poems of Francis Jammes, and will record soon the complete melodies of Maurice Delage and of Guy Sacre.
Also interested in teaching, Jean-François Gardeil founded in 1991 the "Chants de Garonne", class of singing and organization of distrubution of the lyric art in Aquitaine. He is impassioned of scene setting: not only with his recent production of Pauvre Matelot by Darius Milhaud, but also King Arthur by Purcell at Odyssud in November 1995, and very recently two light operas by Paul Lacôme, La nuit de Saint-Jean and La dot mal placée. He performed with Chants de Garonne L'Enfant et les Sortilèges by Ravel in January 1996, but also Les mamelles de Tirésias (November 1996) and Quatre histoires sacrées by M.A. Charpentier and G. Carissimi (December 1997). |
