Yannick Nézet-Séguin

In September 2018, Yannick Nézet-Séguin was appointed the third Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In the same year, after 10 years, he stepped down as conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he has since been honorary conductor. Music Director of The Philadelphia Orchestra since 2012, he has now extended his commitment to this orchestra until 2030, while also expanding his role to become Music and Artistic Director. Nézet-Séguin also remains Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montreal), where he has been active since 2000 and with whom he signed a lifetime contract in 2019 – a step that testifies to the deep mutual trust between players, management, and conductor. Yannick Nézet-Séguin studied piano, conducting, composition, and chamber music at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in his hometown of Montreal, as well as choral conducting at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, before continuing his studies with renowned conductors, notably Carlo Maria Giulini. When he first performed in Europe in 2004, he had already founded his own professional orchestra and vocal ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, and conducted all major Canadian ensembles. In 2008, he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held until 2014. Nézet-Séguin is equally at home in the concert hall and the opera house. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2008, and at La Scala in Milan in 2011. He has also conducted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, and the Dutch National Opera, and played a significant role in a highly successful series of Mozart operas with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Formerly choirmaster, assistant conductor, and musical advisor at the Opéra de Montréal, he conducted productions there including *L’incoronazione di Poppea*, *Così fan tutte*, *L’elisir d‘amore*, and *Pelléas et Mélisande*. Following his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 2009 with an acclaimed production of *Carmen*, he returned every season, leading performances of *Don Carlo*, *Faust*, *La traviata*, *Rusalka*, *Otello*, *Der fliegende Holländer*, *Parsifal*, and *Elektra*. In his first season as Music Director of the Met, he conducted *La traviata*, *Pelléas et Mélisande*, and *Dialogues des Carmélites*. He also conducted the Met Orchestra outside the opera house for the first time in two concerts at Carnegie Hall. Particularly memorable since then have been a performance of Verdi's *Requiem* on the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and a month later, the historically significant opera season opening, where he conducted the first performance of an opera by an African American composer at the Met: Terence Blanchard's *Fire Shut Up in My Bones*. Highlights at the start of Nézet-Séguin's 2023/24 season include a concert with the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montréal – featuring the world premiere of a work by Cris Derksen, as well as Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Bruce Liu as soloist (September 16); the highly anticipated Met premiere of Jake Heggie’s *Dead Man Walking* (September 26); and again Rachmaninoff with The Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall (October 17) and on a European tour (October/November). Yannick Nézet-Séguin signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in May 2018, continuing a long-term partnership that began in 2012 with the launch of a major new cycle of mature Mozart operas, recorded in Baden-Baden with Rolando Villazón in leading roles. Six of these recordings have been released to date: *Don Giovanni*, *Così fan tutte*, *Die Entführung aus dem Serail*, and *Le nozze di Figaro* (both nominated for a Grammy), *La clemenza di Tito*, and *Die Zauberflöte*. The conductor's first orchestral recordings for Deutsche Grammophon were released in 2013. He first conducted The Philadelphia Orchestra in its first studio album for a major label since a 1997 DG recording. It featured Stravinsky's *Le Sacre du printemps* as well as Bach and Stravinsky arrangements by Stokowski. The second album, this time with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, offered Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique" and Romances from opp. 6 and 73, with the conductor accompanying Lisa Batiashvili on piano. His recording of the Schumann Symphonies with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe was released in 2014, and Rachmaninoff Variations with pianist Daniil Trifonov and The Philadelphia Orchestra came out in 2015. Nézet-Séguin collaborated again with the COE on the recording of all Mendelssohn Symphonies – the three-CD album was released in 2017. In the same year, the album *Duets* with Rolando Villazón, Ildar Abdrazakov, and the Orchestre Métropolitain was released. *Visions of Prokofiev*, released in February 2018, features Lisa Batiashvili's performances of Prokofiev's Violin Concertos as well as arrangements of three pieces from his stage works, with Nézet-Séguin again at the helm of the COE. Following acclaimed live performances of Leonard Bernstein's *Mass*, Nézet-Séguin recorded the work with The Philadelphia Orchestra, released in March 2018, making it part of the DG catalog for the first time. Three months later, *The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra Collection* was released, a six-CD box set of previously unreleased live recordings, hand-picked by Nézet-Séguin. In 2020, the conductor and The Philadelphia Orchestra released a recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, a monumental work performed at Verizon Hall in Philadelphia for the 100th anniversary of its US premiere and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon. After returning to his piano during lockdown, Nézet-Séguin recorded piano pieces by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Shostakovich, and Berio, among others, for his album *Introspection*, released in June 2021, marking the conductor's debut as a soloist on DG. In September of that year, the digital release followed of the recordings he made with The Philadelphia Orchestra of Symphonies No. 1 and 3 by the groundbreaking African American composer Florence Price; the album was released on CD in January 2022 and won a Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance and a Diapason d’or. In July 2022, DG released Nézet-Séguin's interpretations of all Beethoven Symphonies with the COE, the first recording of the cycle based on the New Beethoven Complete Edition. In the same month, *A Concert For Ukraine* was released, a recording of a Metropolitan Opera event to express solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Under Nézet-Séguin's direction, star soloists, as well as the Met Chorus and Orchestra, performed music intended to offer comfort and hope. Also that year, he and The Philadelphia Orchestra participated in Chausson's *Poème* on Lisa Batiashvili's album *Secret Love Letters*. A focus for Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra in recent years has been the music of Rachmaninoff, a composer with a uniquely close relationship to this orchestra. With Daniil Trifonov, they have recorded the four piano concertos: The first of two albums, containing Concertos No. 2 and 4, was released in October 2018 and won the Concerto Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards; the second, with Concertos No. 1 and 3, as well as Trifonov's transcriptions of *Vocalise* and *The Silver Sleigh Bells*, came out in October 2019 and was nominated for a Grammy. The conductor and his orchestra then recorded the composer's three symphonies and other orchestral works. Their performance of Symphony No. 1 and the Symphonic Dances was released in January 2021, and a double album with Symphonies No. 2 and 3 and *Isle of the Dead* was released in June 2023 as part of the celebrations for Rachmaninoff's 150th birthday. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has received numerous awards and prizes: "Artist of the Year" by Musical America (2016) and "Conductor of the Year" at the Echo Klassik Award 2014; Royal Philharmonic Society Award; National Arts Centre Award; Virginia Parker Prize; Prix Denise-Pelletier; and Oskar Morawetz Award. In addition, he holds eight honorary doctorates: from the Université de Québec à Montréal (2011), the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (2014), Westminster Choir College of Rider University (2015), McGill University in Montreal (2017), the Université de Montréal (2017), Penn University (2018), the Université Laval (2021), and Drexel University in Philadelphia (2023). He is a Companion of the Order of Canada (2012), Compagnon des arts et des lettres du Québec (2015), Officier de l’Ordre national du Québec (2015), Officier de l‘Ordre de Montréal (2017), and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (2020) and Officier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French government (2021). 7/2023