Paris is a stimulating environment for classical music, both established and contemporary. The former is well represented with a choice of ten to twenty concerts every day of the week, with numerous performances making the most of churches' fine acoustics, often for free or relatively little. Excellent chamber music can be heard in the fine settings of the Musée du Louvre and Musée d'Orsay. The main orchestras to look out for are the Orchestre de Paris, which has built up a formidable reputation under Christopher Eschenbach, and the Orchestre National de France, which has just come under the baton of Kurt Masur.Early music has a dedicated following in Paris. The capital's most respected baroque ensemble is William Christie's Les Arts Florissants, known for their exciting renditions of Rameau's operas and choral pieces, and works by Lully and Charpentier. The highly regarded Marc Minkowski, another champion of French baroque music, also conducts regularly in the capital. Contemporary and experimental computer-based work flourishes, too; leading exponents are Paul Mefano and Pierre Boulez, a pupil of Olivier Messiaen, the grand old man of modern French music, who died in 1992. Boulez's experiments have for many years received massive public funding in the form of a vast laboratory of acoustics and "digital signal processing" – a complex known as IRCAM, housed next to the Pompidou Centre. Boulez no longer conducts IRCAM's acclaimed Ensemble InterContemporain (www.ensembleinter.com) – it's currently under the direction of Jonathan Nott – but it still bears its creator's stamp and is committed to performing new work. Other Paris-based practitioners of contemporary and experimental music include Philippe Manoury, Jean-Claude Eloy, Pascal Dusapin and Luc Ferrarie. Among the younger generation of less sectarian composers, some names to look out for are Nicos Papadimitriou, Thierry Pécourt, François Leclere, Marc Dalbavie, Yan Mharesz, and Georges Aperghis, whose speciality is musical theatre. The city hosts a good number of music festivals, which vary from year to year. For more details, pick up the current year's festival schedule from any of the tourist offices or the Hôtel de Ville, 29 rue du Rivoli, 4e (M° Hôtel-de-Ville). Two periodicals devoted to the music scene are the monthly Le Monde de la Musique and Diapason. Two free monthlies – Cadences and La Terrasse – are distributed outside concert venues. Good, general websites include www.arpeggione.fr and www.concertclassic.com.
Pages in section ‘Classical music’: Regular concert venues.
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