After studying music and choral and orchestral conducting in Paris, Vienna and Stockholm, Laurence Equilbey founded the choral group Accentus in 1991. In parallel with this, she created in 2002 the first training ensemble for young singers to be attached to the Conservatoire National de Région in Paris. This led her, in 2004, to create with Accentus the tenso programme, which brings together the finest European vocal ensembles for the purpose of research into and development of vocal art. Accentus is today an ensemble of 32 professional singers which appears at the leading French and international festivals. The choir collaborates regularly with prestigious conductors and orchestras including Pierre Boulez, Christoph Eschenbach, the Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Concerto Köln, and the Akademie für Alte Musik. Critically acclaimed ever since its first recording, each of the groups CDs has received numerous prizes from the music press, and its recording of “Transcriptions” has sold more than 100,000 copies. A renowned figure in the world of Baroque music, French soprano Sandrine Piau performs regularly with such celebrated conductors as William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Christophe Rousset, Gustav Leonhardt, Sigiswald Kuijken, Ton Koopman, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski, Fabio Biondi, Michel Corboz, Josep Pons and Louis Langrée. Internationally-acclaimed French baritone Stephane Degout graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon and then became a member of the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Lyon. Degout gained international attention when he made a triumphant debut as Papageno at the Festival dAix-en-Provence in 1999. Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48 between 1887 and 1890. His reasons for composing his Requiem are uncertain. One possible impetus may have been the death of his father in 1885, and his mother's death two years later on New Year's Eve 1887. However, by the time of his mother's death he had already begun the work, which he later declared was "composed for nothing … for fun, if I may be permitted to say so!" Originally written for smaller forces, the score was reworked for full orchestra by the composer between 1899 and1900. Gramophone Magazine August 2009 “There may be a more profoundly beautiful recording of Fauré's Requiem out there, but if so, I've not heard it. I defy any sensitive soul not to be transported into a state of near rapture by the unspeakably delicious Sanctus, the solo violin of Luc Héry floating ethereally above the choral and orchestral textures like a skylark in full song. ...Equilbey shapes and caresses every single phrase, every line, every note with the kind of loving care few conductors ever lavish on such a well known and technically undemanding score. The result is a genuinely revelatory reading.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010 “Can there may be a more profoundly beautiful recording of Fauré's Requiem out there? We defy any sensitive soul not to be transported into a state of near rapture by the unspeakably delicious Sanctus, the solo violin of Luc Héry floating ethereally above the choral and orchestral textures like a skylark in full song. What is it that makes this such a sublimely beautiful recording of a work which, let's face it, is more than generously represented in the catalogues? (For the record, this is the original scoring of the work – organ with chamber orchestra minus violins – which was finally published in 1969.) It's not just the lovely sound produced by the three dozen voices of Accentus, unquestionably one of the really top-notch choirs around at the moment, or the angelic voices of the Maîtrise de Paris which point us heavenwards in the closing In Paradisum. Nor can the credit for such unremitting loveliness be laid wholly at the feet of the members of the Orchestre National de France, handling this famous score with rare sensitivity and delicacy, or the wonderful pair of soloists. Stéphane Degout brings immeasurable poise to the Hostias, while Sandrine Piau's PieJesu has a wholly unaffected aura of purity and innocence – and has the string response to each line ever before been captured on disc with such utter gentleness? These are all exceptional elements, but the two things which transform this are the recording's location and Laurence Equilbey's inspired direction. The famous Parisian church of St Clotilde imbues the whole thing with an atmosphere of warmth and great tranquillity, the organ pedals perfectly proportioned (and superbly captured by the Naïve engineers), while Equilbey shapes and caresses every single phrase, every line, every note with the kind of loving care few conductors ever lavish on such a well known and technically undemanding score. The result is a genuinely revelatory reading.”