Chloé Sévère

Biography

Chloé Sévère is the co-founder and director of Ensemble El Sol and has cultivated that group's unusual specialty of Spanish and South American Baroque music. She has also been active as an educator, harpsichordist, and keyboard accompanist.

Sévère began studying the harpsichord at the Conservatoire à rayonnement départemental de la Vallée de Chevreuse with Michèle Dévérité. She graduated with honors and went on to the Amsterdam Conservatory for a harpsichord bachelor's degree studying with Bob van Asperen, and returned to France for a master's degree at the Paris Conservatory, working with Olivier Baumont. Sévère took lessons in chamber music with Kenneth Weiss and continuo playing with Blandine Rannou.

A special focus of her career has been serving as an audition and competition accompanist: she has filled these roles at the Juilliard School in New York, the Renata Tebaldi Baroque Singing Competition in San Marino, and the Handel Singing Competition in London. Sévère herself emerged as the winner of the Young Talent prize at a competition sponsored by Zonta International, after which she gained prestigious new collaborators: Nathalie Stutzmann, Les Arts Florissants, and Versailles Baroque Music Center, where she has made recurring appearances.