Marc Minkowski

Marc Minkowski plays an active role in promoting classical music both though his exciting career as conductor, and as an artistic administrator. He is currently General Manager of the Opéra National de Bordeaux, having been appointed in 2016, was the Artistic Director of the Mozartwoche (Mozart Week), Salzburg from 2013 to 2017 and became the Artistic Advisor of Kanazawa Orchestra (Japan) from September 2018. In addition, he founded the orchestra Les Musiciens du Louvre in 1982 and created the Ré Majeure Festival on Île de Ré (French Atlantic coast) in 2011. In 2018, he was honored as a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

After studying the bassoon, Marc Minkowski began conducting at an early age, then followed maestro Charles Bruck’s academy at the Pierre Monteux Memorial School, Hancock, Maine. At the age of nineteen, he founded Les Musiciens du Louvre, an ensemble that was to play an active role in the revival of Baroque music. Under his direction, Les Musiciens du Louvre explored both French Baroque music and Handel, before expanding their repertoire to include Mozart, Rossini, Offenbach, Bizet, and Wagner.

Marc Minkowski regularly appears in many of the world’s most highly-regarded opera houses and concert halls. In Paris, he has conducted Idomeneo, Platée, Die Zauberflöte, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Iphigénie en Tauride, Mireille and Alceste at the Opéra National; La Belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Carmen and Die Feen at the Théâtre du Châtelet; and La Dame blanche, Pelléas et Mélisande, Cendrillon, Die Fledermaus, Mârouf and Manon at the Opéra Comique. He has conducted several operas at the Salzburg Festival (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mitridate, Così fan tutte, Lucio Silla, Die Fledermaus). His other international engagements have included: San Francisco (Don Giovanni), Brussels (Les Huguenots, Hamlet, and Il Trovatore at La Monnaie), Zurich, Venice, Moscow (first Pelléas et Mélisande ever on a russian stage at the Stanislavski Theatre, which won many awards), Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna (Hamlet, Fidelio, Le Nozze di figaro and Der Fliegende Holländer at the Theater an der Wien, Alcina and Gluck’s Armide at the Vienna State Opera) and Aix-en-Provence (L’incoronazione di Poppea, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Don Giovanni, Les Boréades and Il turco in Italia). Since the 2014-2015 season, he has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Idomeneo, Traviata, Don Giovanni) and the Teatro alla Scala (Lucio Silla, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and l’Heure espagnole). At the Opéra National de Bordeaux, he has conducted Pelléas et Mélisande, La Vie Parisienne, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Manon.

With an active interest in collaborating with a diverse range of directors, he has worked with François Abou-Salem, Chistopher Alden, David Alden, Ivan Alexandre, Philippe Béziat, Robert Carsen, Jérôme Deschamps, Richard Eyre, Jürgen Flimm, Joan Font, Achim Freyer, La Fura dels Baus, Jean-Claude Gallotta, Romain Gilbert, Klaus Michael Grüber, Claus Guth, Karl Ernst and Ursel Herrmann, Kasper Holten, Vincent Huguet, Nicholas Hytner, Nicolas Joel, Charles Jude, Waldemar Kamer, Natalia Korczakowska, Günter Krämer, Martin Kušej, Jorge Lavelli, Benjamin Lazar, Macha Makeïeff, Satoshi Miyagi, Sergio Morabito, Mark Morris, David McVicar, Jean-Pierre Miquel, Hans Neuenfels, Adrian Noble, Pascal Paul-Harang, Laurent Pelly, Jean-Louis Pichon, Pier Luigi Pizzi, David Pountney, Olivier Py, Marshall Pynkoski, Emilio Sagi, Karine Saporta, Laura Scozzi, Florent Siaud, Philippe Sireuil, Jacopo Spirei, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Jossi Wieler, Robert Wilson.

Marc Minkowski is also in high demand on the concert platform in standard and modern symphonic repertoire, conducting orchestras such as DSO Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, BBCSO, City of Birmingham SO, Kanazawa Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Mariinsky Orchestra among others.

The highlights of his 2019-2020 season include: Offenbach Contes d’Hoffmann at the Opéra National de Bordeaux, Meyerbeer Huguenots at Grand Théâtre de Genève, Messiah staged by Bob Wilson in Salzburg and the revival of his Mozart Trilogy at Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Although raised in Paris, both his heritage – American mother, French father, Swiss, Czech and Polish grandparents – and frequent travels for work have lead him to become a global citizen.