Leonardo García Alarcón

Having studied the piano in Argentina, Leonardo García Alarcón moved to Europe in 1997 and entered the Geneva Conservatory in the class of harpsichordist Christiane Jaccottet. It was under the aegis of Gabriel Garrido that he began to be closely associated with the Baroque repertoire.

He created his ensemble Cappella Mediterranea in 2005 and the Millenium Orchestra in 2015, the latter to accompany the Namur Chamber Choir, where he had been artistic director since 2010. He teaches at the Haute école de musique de Genève, is a regular guest at the Ambronay Festival and artist in residence at the Dijon Opera and also appears frequently in Belgium and in his native South America.

Leonardo García Alarcón has rediscovered many of Cavalli’s operas, such as Elena and Erismena at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2013 and 2017, Eliogabalo, with which he opened the 2016 Paris Opéra season, and Il Giasone in Geneva. He also conducted Antonio Draghi’s El Prometeo at the Dijon Opera in 2018, returning the following year for Francesco Sacrati’s La finta pazza. Other projects include Sasha Waltz’s production of Orfeo at the Berlin State Opera in 2018 and Les Indes galantes at the Paris Opéra in 2019, marking the 350th anniversary of the Académie Royale de Musique.

Leonardo García Alarcón was named best conductor by Forum Opéra in 2019. He has also been artist in residence at Radio France during the 2019/20 season.

His widely acclaimed discography includes I 7 peccati capitali, a programme of excerpts from Monteverdi operas, which was nominated for best recording at the 2017 Victoires de la musique classique, Joan Manuel Serrat’s De vez en cuando la vida and works by Jacques Arcadelt in 2018 as well as a DVD of Il Giasone and a CD of motets by Lully in 2019. Critics recently hailed his recording of El Prometeo, for which he composed the music of Act III, the original having disappeared.

Leonardo García Alarcón has been named Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et Lettres.