Kader Hassissi, the co-founder of the Festival d’Opéra Baroque et Romantique at Beaune, passed away on August 15, 2022. He was 72.

Hassissi contracted COVID-19 at the start of the summer of the year and died from the effects of the disease.

Hassissi co-founded the Festival with his wife Anne Blanchard in 1983 and dedicated 40 years of his life to it as Managing director. According to specialists, as reported by Radio France, the festival will remain, “one of the touchstones of the rediscovery of ancient music in the 20th century.”

He was dedicated to the preservation of the Baroque aesthetic and was well-known for collaboration with the careers of renowned artists including René Jacobs, Emmanuelle Haïm, and Philippe Jaroussky.

“A stubborn and brilliant mastermind of this world-renowned opera festival, which he held against all odds, a tireless promoter of the baroque and its actors, Kader Hassissi has fostered for forty years the career of a whole generation of artists,” the French Ministry of Culture said in an official statement on Hassissi’s passing. “This humanity, this honesty, this sincerity and this enthusiasm of Kader Hassissi, we will regret them so much. I extend my deepest condolences to his wife, Anne Blanchard, and to all his loved ones, and to the Festival teams.”