2025 VOICE RESIDENCY

23 JUNE — 8 JULY 2025

Residency open to singers and pianists vocal coaches in career development.

For over 25 years, the Académie du Festival d'Aix has been committed to nurturing a new generation of artists, by creating inspiring residencies that combine tradition and innovation. Lyric art, the genesis of opera, is one of its special features. The Académie creates a space for international artists to develop their careers, through encounters with recognized voice masters. 

The 2025 Voice Residency pursues the objectives of its predecessors, reinforcing the role of musical dramaturgy and vocal coaching in the profession of singers and pianists. Straddling the period between the end of rehearsals for scheduled productions and the opening week of the 77th Festival d'Aix, the 2025 Voice Residency gives artists unique visibility in a stimulating setting, punctuated by unique artistic and inter-professional encounters.

Darrell Babidge, professor of voice and head of the vocal department at New York's Juilliard School of Music, will supervise this residency for the third consecutive time, offering the artists his attentiveness, expertise and humanity. An emblematic figure of the Festival, French baritone Stéphane Degout returns for the second time to the Académie to teach the interpretation of French mélodie for the second program of the residency.  The final concert, devoted to French and Italian Baroque music, will be prepared in collaboration with Sébastien Daucé, musical director of the Ensemble Correspondances, who will accompany the concert. Known to festival-goers for their participation in Combattimento, la théorie du Cygne noir in 2021, Sébastien Daucé and his Ensemble Correspondances are among the most sought-after interpreters of 17th-century music.

Participation in the 2025 Voice Residency will give rise to a series of private and public activities, including master classes, two concerts in the Aix en juin program, a concert in the region, participation in musical encounters organized in conjunction with the Festival's Passerelles department, and a closing concert with orchestra. Each concert will focus on a particular repertoire: operatic arias, French melodies, Baroque.

DATES

From 22 June to 9 July 2025

DESCRIPTION

— Vocal coaching with Darrell Babidge
— Work on 3 concert programs, including one with orchestra

Some work sessions (mostly in English) will be open to the public.
The residency will give rise to concerts and public events in June, in and around Aix-en-Provence. Educational events will be organized in conjunction with the Festival d'Aix's Passerelles department.

MENTORS ARTISTS

RESIDENT ARTISTS

10 singers
3 pianists vocal coaches