Viola da gamba player Florence Bolton is the co-founder and an artistic director of the early music ensemble La Rêveuse. She has also performed and recorded with other French groups in the historical performance field. Bolton was born in 1970. She was interested in early music from the start, taking up music at the age of seven and studying the harpsichord and the recorder before switching to the viola da gamba. Bolton attended the Conservatoire de Musique et de Danse de Saint-Cloud, studying with Jordi Savall protégée and bass viol player Sylvia Abramowicz. She received the school's first prizes in viola da gamba and chamber music. Bolton went on to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon (CNSMD), earning a first prize from that institution in 2001 as well after studies with Marianne Muller. Around that time, she began to perform with early music groups such as Doulce Mémoire, La Fenice, and Le Poème Harmonique. She made her recording debut in 2004 with the latter group under leader Vincent Dumestre on an album of music by Antoine Boësset. Bolton also holds a master's degree in Japanese studies from France's Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales. In 2004, Bolton and theorbo player Benjamin Perrot formed the historical performance ensemble La Rêveuse. The two continued to lead the group as of the early 2020s, with Bolton serving as artistic director. La Rêveuse performs music of the 17th and 18th centuries, mostly from France and England; there is a small core group that expands for occasional performances of larger works. She has performed widely with the group, including at the Folles Journées de Nantes festival. Bolton has devised various stage and multimedia works with La Rêveuse, including the Histoire comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune (2006), with actor and director Benjamin Lazar, La Mille et Une Nuits (2011), with actress and director Louise Moaty, and the Concerto Luminoso (2012), with visual artist Vincent Vergone. She also performs various other functions on the group's recordings, including editing and writing booklet notes. Bolton and La Rêveuse released the album Le Concert des Oiseaux on the Harmonia Mundi label in 2023. ~ James Manheim, Rovi