Vincent Dumestre was born on 5 May 1968 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. He studied classical guitar at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and art history at the École du Louvre before dedicating himself to theorbo, Baroque guitar and lute, studying with Hopkinson Smith and Eugène Ferré. He performed with ensembles including the Ricercar Consort, La Simphonie du Marais, and Le Concert des Nations before founding his own ensemble, Le Poème Harmonique, in 1997 (some sources cite 1998) to recreate and promote 17th-century music. Dumestre was named “Young Talent of the Year” by Diapason magazine in 1999, appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture in 2004, and received the Grand Prix du Disque of the Académie Charles Cros in 2005 for his recording of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

As founder and director of Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre has been a leading figure in the revival of early 17th-century French music, staging acclaimed theatrical productions such as Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Cadmus et Hermione in collaboration with director Benjamin Lazar that reconstructed period pronunciation, gesture, and candlelit staging. His recordings for the Alpha label, using theorbo, lirone, and other historical instruments now rarely heard, have earned numerous Diapason d’Or and Choc awards and helped bring rare Baroque and early Baroque repertoire to a broad international audience.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Dumestre
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Po%C3%A8me_Harmonique