Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Conductor and pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on March 6, 1975. He has become one of the most prominent conductors of his generation and has served as the music director for Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also served as the principal conductor for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra between 2008 and 2018. His musical career began after he studied piano and was awarded five first prizes at the Conservatory of Music of Quebec. Yannick Nézet-Séguin took choral conducting courses at Princeton University in New Jersey, then spent a year as assistant to Carlo Maria Giulini, whom he considered his master. He directed choirs in Montreal, forming his own ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, which lasted from 1995 until 2002. Yannick Nézet-Séguin served as assistant conductor at the Opéra de Montréal between 1998 and 2002 before taking the position of principal conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain in 2000, where his contract has been extended for life. He was invited to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra and became their music director, a contract that was extended until 2026. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has also conducted other ensembles as guest conductor, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the European Chamber Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and others. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has also collaborated many classical artists including Diane Dufresne, Marc Hervieux, Emmanuel Pahud, Lisa Batiashvili, Andreas Ottensamer, Miloš Karadaglić, Seong-Jin Cho, Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato and more. Over the course of his career, he has conducted classic works by composers such as Rota, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Bruckner, Ravel, Beethoven, Berlioz, R. Strauss, and Tchaikovsky. Many of these performances make up the bulk of his catalog, which includes Rota: Concertos (2003), Mahler: Symphony No. 4 (2004), Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 (2007), Ravel: Orchestral Works (2009), Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 (2013), Florence Price Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 (2021), and the pandemic-inspired Introspection: Solo Piano Sessions (2021). In July 2022, Yannick Nézet-Séguin released Beethoven: The Symphonies, a recording he made with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.