Virginia Arts Festival Presents Les Violons du Roy

Virginia Arts Festival presents a wealth of chamber music each season, offering music lovers opportunities to hear world-renowned artists in intimate settings. On April 21, the Festival will present the regional debut of the acclaimed Canadian chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy, performing works by Mozart, Stravinsky, and 20th century Romanian composer George Enescu.

Les Violons du Roy takes its name from the renowned string orchestra of the court of the French kings-and has more than earned the royal designation with its internationally acclaimed performances and recordings. The group, which has a core membership of fifteen players, was brought together in 1984 by founding conductor Bernard Labadie and specializes in the vast repertoire of music for chamber orchestra, performed in the stylistic manner most appropriate to each era. Although the ensemble plays on modern instruments, its approach to the works of the Baroque and Classical periods has been strongly influenced by current research into performance practice in the 17th and 18th centuries; in this repertoire Les Violons du Roy uses copies of period bows. The orchestra also regularly delves into the repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries, as witnessed by its recordings of works by Piazzolla, Bartók, and Britten.

Les Violons du Roy is well known throughout Canada and around the world, and has performed in Austria, Belgium, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and United States, among others. The ensemble performs regularly in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and is heard frequently on NPR.

In their Virginia Arts Festival debut, Les Violons du Roy will be led by British violinist Anthony Marwood, who is known worldwide as an artist of exceptional expressive force, with an effortless technique and beautiful tone. Acclaim for Marwood approaches adulation; his artistry and stage presence command rave reviews like this one from Ireland's Sunday Tribune: "Few musicians serve their metaphorical master as convincingly as British violinist Anthony Marwood. His every endeavor seems to stem from a debt to art, a debt to music. There is nothing that gets in the way of the ultimate goal-the realization of perfection and honesty in his craft." Or, as Australia's The Age newspaper put it: "If there were rock-star equivalents in the classical music world, ace British violinist Anthony Marwood would be on the list."

Tickets for the April 21 performance by Les Violons du Roy are $35 and can be purchased online at www.vafest.org, by phone at 757-282-2822 or by visiting the Virginia Arts Festival box office located at 440 Bank Street in Norfolk between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday-Friday.

About Virginia Arts Festival

Since 1997, the Virginia Arts Festival has transformed the cultural scene in southeastern Virginia, presenting great performers from around the world to local audiences and making this historic, recreation-rich region a cultural destination for visitors from across the United States and around the world. The Festival has presented numerous U.S. and regional premieres, and regularly commissions new works of music, dance, and theater from some of today's most influential composers, choreographers and playwrights. The Festival's arts education programs reach tens of thousands of area schoolchildren each year through student matinees, in-school performances, artists' residencies, master classes and demonstrations.

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