Emmanuel Plasson
Conductor
Profile
Having been in the music environment at the highest level from the very beginning of my life and spending many years playing the violin in various orchestras, I have got a great sense of what a conductor must and cannot do with his musicians. I have a high work ethic which I am very passionate about, I am demanding, thorough and reliable.
Artist's web
www.emmanuelplasson.com/
Biography
Emmanuel Plasson has established himself as a leading ambassador for French music through his remarkable international career spanning both the symphonic and operatic worlds. Maestro Plasson made his North American debut in 1997 conducting the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden on tour, including performances at the Metropolitan Opera House in New
York. This resulted in an immediate invitation to be an Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera during the two following seasons (for productions of Manon and Carmen).
The current season sees once again a return to the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden to conduct a triple bill production. He will also perform Verdi’s Il Trovatore at Hawaii Opera Theater and two productions with the Opera Company of Middlebury VT, whose music director he has been since 2011.
Maestro Plasson’s career has seen engagements all around the globe:
In North America he has conducted at Boston Lyric Opera – Lucie de Lammermoor – , New York City Opera – La Périchole to great critical acclaim and Les Pêcheurs de Perles – , New York Opera Society – Falstaff – , Opera Birmingham – Carmen and Samson et Dalilah – , Kentucky Opera – Roméo et Juliette and Cendrillon – , Minnesota Opera – Faust and Il Barbiere di Siviglia – , Cincinnatti Opera – Tales of Hoffmann – , Montclair State University – Albert Herring – , Opera Company of Middlebury – La Traviata, Eugen Onegin, L’italiana in Algeri, Thaïs, La Rondine and Turandot – , Opéra de Montréal – Lakmé and Faust – . He has also performed with the Dallas, Minnesota, Orlando and Wolf Trap Opera Companies.
Engagements in Australia included five productions with Opera Australia – La Traviata, Faust, Manon, Orphée aux Enfers and Werther – as well as another production of Manon with Melbourne Opera. Maestro Plasson has also lead a production of Carmen with New Zealand Opera. He has conducted the Adelaide, Melbourne, Western Australian and Australia’s Queensland Symphony Orchestras.
He has returned twice to the National Ballet of Japan conducting Prokofiev’s Cinderella and has also performed with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra.
Emmanuel Plasson won the Donatella Flick International Conducting Competition in 1994 conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, launching his UK debut.
He subsequently worked with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, and, in 2002, made his debut with Opera North in a double-‐bill of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.
Other Northern European engagements included two productions of Werther once with the Royal Swedish Opera and also with the Royal Danish Opera. He begins the 2012 New Year in Bergen, conducting the Norwegian premiere of L’étoile by Chabrier with the Bergen Philharmonic and Den Nye Opera in the Mark Lamos production with which he was associated at New York City Opera in 2010.
Maestro Plasson has also conducted three productions with Hamburg Staatsoper – Tales of Hoffmann and La fille du Régiment –.
He appeared with the Aalborg, Aarhus and Prague Symphonies, the Nordwestdeutschen Philharmonie, the Brabants Orkest in the Netherlands and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
In his native France he has conducted the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre Régional de Cannes, Orchestre National de Bordeaux, and several productions with the Grand Théâtre d’Avignon. He has further performed twice at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse in productions of Cendrillon and Faust. At Toulon Opera he has conducted Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
Other performances in Southern Europe include a concert with the Orquestra Sinfonica Portuguesa with works by Berlioz, Liszt and Schumann and a production of Lucia di Lammermoor with Catania Opera in Sicily.
Emmanuel Plasson began his musical studies as a violinist. Son of the renowned French conductor Michel Plasson, he began formal conducting studies at the Pierre Monteux School in Maine, U.S.A., and continued his training at the Yale School of Music. His discography includes recordings on the EMI and Dynamic labels.
