Hervé (“Air-vey”) Blanquart co-founded UP CLOSE AND CLASSICAL with his wife Alicja and usually emcees the concerts. Hervé is a singer, occasionally a choir director, but has never quit his day job in business management. His initial training was between age 9 and 12, touring France and the world with the Paris’ Boys Choir (Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois) as a soprano soloist (3rd on this 1977 video). He discovered the US for the first time on his last tour with the choir in 1978. He then graduated in France in business but returned to singing after moving for good in 1993 to California where he sang over 20 operas, either as a chorister of the Los Angeles Opera and Opera San Diego, or as a principal artist in smaller opera companies. He also explored the choral repertoire with Pacific Chorale and other choirs. He then re-acquainted himself with Gregorian Chant first learned in the boys choir. In the process, encountered the work of Guido d’Arezzo, the 11th century monk who invented solfege and staff notation. Guido thought singers were fools for spending so much time memorizing music. Hervé then rebalanced his non-singing time between promoting chamber music and elementary music literacy for singers. He also cantors Catholic masses at Mary Star of the Sea in San Pedro (Sundays 12:00PM) and Saint Matthew in Long Beach (7:00AM). His chant website, https://longbeachchant.com/, has been viewed 100K times by 42K visitors since 2013.