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Marc Minkowski began conducting at an early age and 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 conducts in Paris, Platée, Idomeneo, Die Zauberflöte, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Iphigénie en Tauride, Mireille and Alceste (Opéra National de Paris) ; La Belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Carmen and Die Feen (Théâtre du Châtelet) ; La Dame blanche, Pelléas et Mélisande, Cendrillon by Massenet, Die Fledermaus and Mârouf by Rabaub (Opéra Comique).

He has also conducted several operas at the Salzburg Festival (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mitridate, Così fan tutte, Lucio Silla). His other international engagements includes : Brussels ( La Cenerentola, Don Quixote, Les Huguenots, Il Trovatore), Zurich (Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Giulio Cesare, Agrippina, Les Boréades, Fidelio, La Favorite), Venice (Le Domino noir), Moscow (Pelléas et Mélisande in Russia), Berlin (Robert le Diable, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno), Amsterdam (Roméo et Juliette by Gounod, Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride, Faust by Gounod), Vienna (Hamlet and Der Fliegende Holländer at the Theater an der Wien, Armide and Alcina at the Staatsoper), Aix-en-Provence (L’incoronazione di Poppea, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Don Giovanni and Il turco in Italia ). He recently made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Idomeneo, La Traviata, Don Giovanni) and at the Teatro alla Scala (Lucio Silla, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, L’Heure espagnole). In 2015, he initiated a relationship with the Drottningholm Festival in Sweden centered  around the Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy, in collaboration with the Opéra Royal of the Château de Versailles.

Marc Minkowski is also in high demand on the concert platform in the core 19th and 20th century symphonic repertoire, conducting orchestras such as the BBCSO, DSO Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and the Mariinsky Orchestra…

The highlights of his 2018/2019 operatic season as a conductor include : Pelléas et Mélisande in Japan, der Freischütz in Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Opéra National de Bordeaux, Manon both in Bordeaux and at the Opéra Comique in Paris.

 

Artistic Director of the Mozartwoche (Mozart Week), Salzburg from 2013 to 2017. He founded the Ré Majeure Festival on Île de Ré (French Atlantic coast) in 2011 and became the Artistic Advisor of Kanazawa Orchestra (Japan) from September 2018.

He was appointed General Manager of the Opéra National de Bordeaux in 2016.

© Benjamin Chelly
©AnthonyCottarel
©Anthony Cottarel
©Anthony Cottarel
©Benjamin Chelly
©Benjamin Chelly

Founded in 1982 by Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre breathe new life into the repertoires of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras, performe on period instruments. Over the past thirty years, the Orchestra drew attention with its reinterpretations of Handel, Purcell and Rameau, but of Haydn and Mozart and more recently of Bach and Schubert. It is also well known for playing nineteenth-century French music : Berlioz (Les Nuits d’été, Harold en Italie), Bizet (L’Arlésienne), Massenet (Cendrillon)... Its recent operatic successes include Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Montpellier, Versailles, Pau) Orfeo ed Euridice (Salzburg, Paris, Grenoble), Hoffmann’s Tales (Baden-Baden, Bremen), La Périchole (Bordeaux), Le Nozze di Figaro (Vienna, Versailles), Don Giovanni (Versailles), Così fan tutte (Versailles), Alceste (Paris) or Der fliegende Höllander (Versailles, Grenoble, Vienna). During the 2019-2020 season, Marc Minkowski will conduct three operas : La Périchole (Offenbach), Ariodante (Handel) and Mitridate (Mozart). Sacred music will also being the spotlight. Under Marc Minkowski’s baton, St John's Passion (Bach) and The Messiah (Handel) will go on a european tour whereas Francesco Corti will conduct Stabat Mater (Pergolesi) in Grenoble. After the complete London Symphonies by Haydn (naïve, 2010) and the Schubert Symphonies (naïve,2012), the box set Flying Dutchman by Dietsch / Wagner (naïve,2013) and Bach, Johannes-Passion (Erato, 2017), 2 CD’s will be released : La Périchole by Offenbach (Bru Zane) during the summer of 2019, then, in spring 2020, Great Mass in C minor by Mozart (Pentatone).

 

Subsidized by the Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the French Ministry of Culture (DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes), supported by various companies, Les Musiciens du Louvre develop numerous projects to share music with all audiences in the regional territory.

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