In the Middle Ages the Paladins were knights errant questing for adventure.  In 1760, Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote Les Paladins, the ultimate masterpiece of the spirit of French baroque, deliberately placed under the banner of fantasy and imagination.

Taking their name from one of France's greatest composers, Les Paladins set out to explore unjustly neglected repertoire among the great jewels of baroque ensemble music, in association with the Centre de Musique Baroque in Versailles (first performances in modern times of works such as Desmarest's Iphigénie en Tauride or Destouches' Les Eléments);  with the Ambronay Festival (Carissimi's  Storie sacre, Hasse's The Fire Serpents in the Desert);  and with the Jean de la Fontaine Festival (Charpentier's Actéon, Lully's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme).

They have also performed at the Semaines Musicales de Quimper (Purcell - Dido and Aeneas and the Ode to St Cecilia);  at the Sully sur Loire Festival (Nicola Porpora's Leçons de Ténèbres);  at the Auvers sur Oise Festival, the Festival Musique et Mémoire (Domenico Mazzocchi's  Music for the Sistine Chapel);  at the Lourdes Festival of Sacred Music (Handel's Ode to St Cecilia);  at the Evian Festival; at the Festival des Cathédrales in Picardy (Handel's Great Dramatic Cantatas);  at the Invalides and for the Grands Concerts du Palais Royal (Charpentier's of David et Jonathan and Handel's Saul);  for Radio France;  at the Metz Arsenal, and further afield in London, Geneva, Utrecht, Rome, Milan and Prague.

Les Paladins continue to explore the repertoire of Italian dramatic music, sacred or secular.  After Carissimi, there are many works by Porpora, Hasse, Albinoni or Mazzocchi waiting to be performed.


Jérôme Correas

After studying harpsichord and continuo with Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume, Jérôme Correas took up singing, obtaining a 'Premier Prix' at Paris' Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique and spending two years at the Ecole d'Art Lyrique at the Paris Opera.  He has sung both baroque music and that of the 19th and 20th centuries with many conductors (William Christie, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Christophe Rousset, Christophe Coin, Sigiswald Kuijken, Michel Corboz, Marek Janowski, Jesus Lopez-Coboz, Gabriel Garcia-Navarro, Donato Renzetti, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Arie Van Beck), and has made some thirty recordings.

He founded Les Paladins in 1997, devoting his dual capacity as singer and instrumentalist to the rediscovery of unedited or little-known vocal and instrumental music including works by Carissimi, Mazzocchi, Hasse, Porpora, Mouret and Desmarest.

In 2003 Jérôme Correas was invited to conduct the Israel Camerata for a tour of Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv with Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.

He is also heavily involved in teaching:  at the Lanciano Academy in Italy;  at
Ambronay Abbey's Centre Culturel de Rencontre;  at the Prague Institut Français;  at the Maîtrise of Versailles' Centre de Musique Baroque;  and at the Juiz de Fora Festival in Brazil at the request of the Foreign Ministry and the AFAA (Association Française d'Action Artistique);  and for masterclasses.  He teaches singing (baroque repertoire) and the Conservatoire National de Région in Toulouse.