Barbara Nestola is a musicologist and research engineer with the Ministère de la Culture (CESR-CMBV). Her work focuses on the circulation of music between Italy and France and other European countries; on opera productions at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris;  and on the crossover of musical practices in Paris theatres under the Ancien Régime. She specialises in Italian vocal declamation, delivers singing masterclasses and is involved in opera productions. She regularly prepares professional singers for concerts, recitals, opera productions and audio-visual recordings.

An expert on Marc-Antoine Charpentier, she has published several works about the composer and contributed to CMBV Monumentale publications. Her latest work is about the Duchess of Maine, patron of the Arts. She is involved in cross-disciplinary musicology and literature projects.

With a degree in cello, bassoon, chamber music and music theory, Benoît Dratwicki gravitated towards the history, analysis & aesthetics of music and orchestration. From 2001 he was delegate then Artistic Director of the CMBV (Centre de musique baroque de Versailles). In 2006 he helped found the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venise, for which he is Artistic Advisor. He produced the radio programme La Querelle des Bouffons for France Musique with his brother Alexandre (2006-2007). With a PhD in Musicology, he specialised in Versailles Musique du roi and 18^th century French opera (repertoire, style & interpretation), about which he has published several articles and essays. He organises conferences and masterclasses (mainly for singers). In collaboration with the CMBV and the Palazzetto Bru Zane, he has helped recreate over fifty French operas from the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th century, recorded under various record labels.

Julien Dubruque is an alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure, an agrégé de l’Université, and has a Ph.D. in musicology. He has studied harpsichord and basso continuo at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatoire, and aesthetics at the Paris Conservatoire. He teaches Classics in classes préparatoires at the Lycée Victor Hugo in Paris and is a researcher and an editor at the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, where he has published more than thirty critical editions, as well as an associated researcher at the Institut de recherches en musicologie (IReMus). He collaborates in the Opera Omnia Rameau (OOR), and in the Édition Numérique, Critique et Collaborative de l’Encyclopédie (ENCCRE).
 

Since his degree from the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Laurent Guillo has been working on 16th-18th century printed and manuscript musical sources from France, Switzerland and the former Netherlands. He has widened his research to include the history of libraries and collections of early music, biographies and the study of music publishing legal & material aspects (privileges, typography & transcribing materials, sheet music paper, copyists, stencilling, etc.). His research focuses on the history of book publishing, investigating its technical, intellectual and commercial aspects and their interaction. He has been working with the CMBV since September 2019 and is an associate member of the music research institute IReMus.

Bénédicte Hertz has worked with the CMBV research department (CESR, UMR 7323) since 2020. She coordinates the ANR AcadéC project which focuses on 18th century French concert academies (2022-2025).

Since her doctorate on the large choir motet in Lyon, she has focused on 18th century French music, and in particular provincial heritage collections, public concerts and music academism, sacred music and musical practices. She is involved in various joint projects, including Muséfrem (Musiciens d’Église en France à l’époque moderne) and ENCCRE (Édition Numérique Collaborative et Critique de l’Encyclopédie).

Thomas Leconte works as researcher and editorial manager in the CMBV Research Department (CESR, UMR 7323). His focus is on the historical and musical aspects of 17th century French salon music and early grands motets under Louis X1V (1643-1682). He has produced many publications on the subject. He also has a special interest in 17th and 18th century French provincial religious music and in the musical repertoires and practices of extraordinary ceremonies at the French court.

Solveig Serre, historian and musicologist, is a CNRS (CESR/CMBV) research fellow and lecturer at the École Polytechnique. She specialises in the history of opera houses under the Ancien Régime and the history of French folk music. With Luc Robène she directs the PIND research project (Punk is not dead. Une histoire de la scène punk en France, 1976-2016) financed by the ANR. Her publications include L’Opéra de Paris (1749-1791): politique culturelle sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2010).

Jean Duron’s work focuses on music under Louis XIV, notably its performance aspects (musicians, counterpoint, composition & theory), and on the major musical forms (grand motet, tragédie en musique), court music and cathedral music. His research has led to the publication of several essays on contemporary neo-Latin poetry.

Emanuele De Luca is a lecturer in theatre studies at Côte d’Azur university specialising in 17th and 18th century  literature and theatre. His research focuses on the following: the history and repertoire of the Paris Comédie-Italienne; Italian actor/playwrights in France and Europe; French, Italian and European theory concerning the history, poetry and aesthetics of theatrical practices (acting, dance, pantomime, song, music, decor and lighting). At the 2016 international symposium titled La Comédie-Italienne de Paris (1716-1780), Colloque du tricentenaire, Emanuele helped the CMBV create a historically informed stage production called Une Soirée à la Comédie-Italienne de Paris - Théâtre, musique et danse à l’Hôtel de Bourgogne au début du XVIII^e siècle. He co-organises the cross-disciplinary research seminar ThéPARis.

Petra Dotlačilová holds a PhD in Dance Studies from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (2016), and a PhD in Theatre Studies from Stockholm University (2020). She specializes in dance history and theatrical costume in Europe from 16^th to 18^th century. Particularly, she explores aesthetic and material properties of costumes, international transfers in design and relations between garments and movement practices.
She participated in the research projects Performing Premodernity at the Stockholm University and  Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage at Leipzig University. Within these projects, she participated in the organization of several workshops and collaborated at costume-making for historically informed performances of Pygmalion (2015, Český Krumlov, Stockholm/Riddarhuset), and Le Devin du village (2019, Stockholm/Confidencen).
At the CMBV, she participates in the research seminar ThéPARis and in the project ‘L’Académie royale de musique : fabrique d’opéra et entreprise de spectacle en France aux XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles’.

Jana Franková has a PhD in Musicology from the Sorbonne (IReMus) and from Masaryk university in the Czech Republic. Her research focuses on the transfer and exchange of foreign influences in 18th century France in the field of music, and the circulation of French culture and repertoire within Central Europe. Since January 2018 she has been guest researcher at the Moravia Library (Moravská zemská knihovna) in Brno in the Czech Republic. As CMBV research fellow, she is running a research project with Barbara Nestola on musical exchanges between France and the lands of the Bohemian crown in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

After studying at the university of Bologna, Matteo Giannelli has embarked on a PhD in musicology at Tor Vergata university in Rome (under Maria Teresa Gialdroni) and at the CMBV (under Barbara Nestola). His research topic (L’oratorio alla corte di Francesco II d’Este (1662-1694): modalità esecutive, interpreti e simbologie politiche) concerns the oratorios performed in Modena between 1662 and 1694, and will focus on the venues, the modes of performance, the musicians and composers involved, and well as contemporary commentary. Given the host of references in the librettos to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Stuarts’ exile in France, by way of comparison, his research will include the music of the English court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which also relates this event.

Judith le Blanc is associate professor at the University of Rouen, specialized in musical theater and French opera of the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Her book Avatars d’opéras. Parodies et circulation des airs chantés sur les scènes parisiennes (Garnier 2014) has been rewarded with the Prix de l’essai of the Prix des Muses Singer-Polignac. She also works as stage director or consultant on performance projects (Pygmalion by Rameau at the Barokkfest in Trondheim; Les Funérailles de la Foire, opéra-comique after Lesage, Fuzelier and d’Orneval). At the CMBV, she participates in the research seminar ThéPARis, for which she organizes the study day Les dessus du théâtre : aspects techniques et esthétiques. She also contributes to the book « L’Académie royale de musique : Fabrique d’opéra et entreprise de spectacle en France aux XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles » (2022), and is piloting the music and dance comedy Dans les coulisses du Malade imaginaire. 

After a lengthy period working as music critic and in radio, Gaëtan Naulleau finally returned to subjects he had embarked upon earlier. A proponent of musicology focusing on the aesthetic and material issues facing historically informed musicians, his PhD investigates polyphonic Mass in France under Louis XIII and Louis XIV (1610-1715) at Tours university under Philippe Vendrix. By pooling information from scores, musical practices, archives and institutions, and by taking into account the architecture of the venues, he sets out to offer a thrilling glimpse of how polyphony was used during Mass.
 

With a PhD in musicology, Thomas Soury teaches history of music at several French universities (Rennes 2, Metz & Reims). He has also co-edited Rameau’s Opera omnia. He specialises in 18th century French opera,  particularly librettology, and has published articles by librettist Louis de Cahusac’s in Diderot’s Encyclopédie (ENCCRE critical essays). He has researched French operatic genres in France, and is preparing a CMBV publication drawn from the symposiums on Ballet in France held in May 2016 in Brussels (published by Classique Garnier). He has also provided the CMBV with scientific input for the production of Rameau’s Paladins (Oldenbourg, 2019) and has compiled a critical edition of the work. In 2023, he coorganises with Barbara Nestola the international conference L’opéra de cour en France aux XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles : goût, espaces, pratiques

Jacques Szpirglas is a telecommunications engineer with a PhD in mathematics from Paris vi / Pierre & Marie Curie University (1982). In 2015 he obtained a PhD in musicology from the CESR (Renaissance research centre at François Rabelais de Tours university), with a thesis titled Prosopographie des musiciens des Saintes-Chapelles de Paris (148-1640) et de Bourges (1405-1640). His work highlights the lack of aggregate data on musicians under Henri iv, Louis xiii and the young Louis xiv. As CESR research fellow he is currently working with the CMBV on a biographical dictionary of musicians at the royal court under Henri iv (published by Classiques Garnier in 2019), another on musicians under Louis xiii, followed by one on musicians under the young Louis xiv until the end of Cardinal Mazarin’s government (1661).