Damien Guillon

Damien Guillon begins his musical knowledge in 1989 at the Maîtrise de Bretagne supervised by Jean-Michel Noël. He receives a full music education from his youngest age and quickly sings as solo soprano in many baroque oratorios as well as at the Rennes Opera in The Magic Flute by Mozart.
From 1998 till 2001, he is a member of the Maîtrise du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles directed by Olivier Schneebeli, where he improves his vocal technique and deepens his research about early music interpretations with Howard Crook, Jérome Corréas, Alain Buet, Noëlle Barker.
In 2004, he is admitted at the Schola CantorumBasiliensis to receive the teaching of Andreas Scholl. At the same time, he studies organ with Frédéric Desenclos and Véronique Le Guen and graduated in Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory (continuo and harpsichord).
Currently, his vocal and musical qualities earned him invitations to perform with conductors as famous as Masaaki Suzuki, Vincent Dumestre, Hervé Niquet, Philippe Pierlot, Pierre Hanta?, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Christophe Rousset, Bernard Labadie, Philippe Herreweghe and William Christie in the most prestigious concert halls ( Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall New York, Salle Pleyel, Théatre des Champs Elysées Paris, Tokyo City Opera Hall …).
His repertoire ranges from songs of the English Renaissance to Baroque oratorios and operas by Monteverdi (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Bach (Saint John Passion, Matthew Passion, Mass in B minor, Lutherian masses, Christmas Oratorio and cantatas for solo alto), Händel (The Messiah), Purcell (King Arthur and Dido and Aeneas) etc.He performed in several staged productions such as Händel’s Athalia (Paul McCreesh in Ambronay), Teseo (Gilbert Bezzina, Nice Opera) and Giulio Cesare (François-Xavier Roth,Yannis Kokkos, Théâtre de Caen), Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Philippe Pierlot,Théâtre de La Monnaie, Brussels) or, recently, Landi’s Il Sant' Alessio (William Christie and Les Arts Florissants).
Damien Guillon is now frequently invited as a conductor: he conducted Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Christo with Les Musicians du Paradis, Bach’s Magnificat with the Café Zimmermann at the Arques-la-Bataille Festival nd Bach’s Cantatas with the Gent Collegium vocal.
In 2009, Damien Guillon founded his own ensemble « Le Banquet Céleste » and did a first CD recording of J.S Bach Alto Cantatas for Zig Zag Territoires.