Festival de Lanaudière

Jean-Marie Zeitouni is recognized as one of the brightest conductors of his generation for his eloquent yet fiery style, in repertoires ranging from baroque to contemporary. He studied at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, most notably under Maestro Raffi Armenian, and graduated in conducting, percussion, and music theory. He is currently principal guest conductor of the Colorado Music Festival (where he served as music director from 2014 to 2018) and Artistic Partner of the Edmonton Symphony.

Jean-Marie Zeitouni was also artistic director and principal conductor of I Musici de Montréal (2011-2021), music director of the Columbus Symphony (2010-2015) in Ohio, music director of the Opera as Theatre program at the Banff Centre (2005-2007), and assistant conductor and chorus master of the Opéra de Montréal (and music director of its artist-in-residence program, the Atelier lyrique). He was also chorus master of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec and Opéra de Québec and music director of Université Laval’s opera workshop and symphony orchestra. While with the Violons du Roy, an orchestra with which he enjoyed a fruitful collaboration for a dozen years, he was alternately conductor in residence, assistant conductor and principal guest conductor.

Greatly appreciated as a lyrical director, he recently conducted the Opéra national de Montpellier and Orchestre national de Lorraine of Nancy. He has also conducted numerous productions at the Opéra de Montréal, Opéra de Québec, Glimmerglass Opera, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse and Opéra national de Lorraine, as well as productions in Banff, Calgary, Edmonton, Cincinnati and St. Louis.

Among the many Canadian symphony orchestras Jean-Marie Zeitouni has conducted are those of Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Halifax, Victoria, Kitchener-Waterloo and London, not to mention the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Arion Baroque Orchestra and Club musical de Québec. No stranger to the international stage, Mr. Zeitouni has conducted the symphony orchestras of Tucson, Houston, Oregon, Monterey, San Antonio, Omaha, Honolulu, Huntsville and Cincinnati, in addition to the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, Pacific Symphony, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonique de Marseille, Xalapa Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony of Mexico, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Arco Ensemble and Detroit Symphony. He is also a regular at the Festival international de Lanaudière, Festival international du Domaine Forget, Elora Festival, Parry Sound Festival and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival. You may also have seen him at festivals in Round Top, Texas, and Grant Park, Illinois. He recently made his debut in Moscow with the Russian National Orchestra and at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées of Paris.

In 2021-2022, Jean-Marie Zeitouni will conduct at the Victoria Symphony, the Violons du Roy, the Opéra de Québec (Don Giovanni), Opéra de Montréal (La beauté du Monde) and will return at l’Opéra National de Lorraine (Ariane et Barbe-Bleue).

“A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times), pianist Marc-André Hamelin is known worldwide for his unrivaled blend of consummate musicianship and brilliant technique in the great works of the established repertoire, as well as for his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries – in concert and on disc – earning his place as a true icon of the piano. He regularly concertizes around the globe with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time and performs recitals for the major concert venues and festivals worldwide.

Mr. Hamelin is an exclusive recording artist for Hyperion Records where his discography spans more than 70 albums, with notable recordings of a broad range of solo, orchestral and chamber repertoire. In January 2022, they released a two-disc set of CPE Bach Sonatas & Rondos that received wide critical acclaim and chart success.

Mr. Hamelin has composed music throughout his career, with nearly 30 compositions to his name. The majority of those works – including the Études and Toccata on L’Homme armé, commissioned by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition – are published by Edition Peters. His other most recent work, Suite à l’ancienne (Suite in the old style), was premiered in February 2021 by pianist Rachel Naomi Kudo with funding from her Gilmore Young Artist Award.

Mr. Hamelin makes his home in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB. Born in Montreal, he is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the German Record Critics’ Association and has received seven Juno Awards and eleven Grammy nominations, the 2018 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance awarded by Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and in December 2020 was awarded the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Keyboard Artistry from the Ontario Arts Foundation. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.

Silver medalist and laureate of the Krystian Zimerman Prize at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin is standing out today as one of the most important musicians of his generation. In 2014, he also won the second prize at the Montreal International Musical Competition and the third prize at the Seoul International Music Competition in South Korea. Charles is the recipient of the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec and the prestigious Career Development Award offered by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.

He has appeared in various prestigious festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron in France, the Prague Spring Festival, the “Chopin and his Europe” Festival in Warsaw and the Lanaudière Festival in Canada. As a soloist, he has performed with more than fifty ensembles including the main symphony orchestras of Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Métropolitain, Québec, Edmonton, Calgary…) as well as with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, OFUNAM (Mexico), les Violons du Roy and I Musici de Montréal. He has played under the baton of renowned conductors such as Kent Nagano, Antoni Wit, Vasily Petrenko, Jacek Kaspszyk, Aziz Shokhakimov, Peter Oundjian, Jacques Lacombe, Fabien Gabel, Carlo Rizzi, Alexander Prior, Giancarlo Guerrero, Christoph Campestrini, Lan Shui and Jean-Marie Zeitouni. Charles Richard-Hamelin is a graduate from McGill University, the Yale School of Music, the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and has studied with Paul Surdulescu, Sara Laimon, Boris Berman, André Laplante et Jean Saulnier.

His first solo recording, which features late works by Chopin, was released in September 2015 on the Analekta label and received widespread acclaim from critics throughout the world (Diapason, BBC Music Magazine, Le Devoir) as well as a Felix Award (ADISQ). A second album, recorded live at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City with music by Beethoven, Enescu and Chopin, was released in the fall of 2016 and also had a very positive welcome (Gramophone, La Presse, The WholeNote). The first volume of the complete Beethoven violin sonatas with Andrew Wan was released in the fall of 2018 and his next projects include both Chopin Concertos with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Kent Nagano.