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Bruno FERRANDIS |
Versatile and highly-acclaimed
French conductor Bruno Ferrandis started “solfège”
ear-training studies at age 5 ½ and piano at 6 at the Nice Conservatory
of Music under the guidance of world –renowned organist of Notre
Dame de Paris Cathedral, Pierre Cochereau.
Ferrandis studied contrabass and conducting at the age of 15, and gave
his first concert at 17.
He has studied with great maestros such as: Pierre Dervaux in Nice, France,
Franco Ferrara in Siena, Italy (Academia Chiggiana), Sixten Ehrling in
New York, Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood and at Fontainebleau School and The
Juilliard School seminars and master classes with Leonard Bernstein. Ferrandis
is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London, England)
and has a master’s degree in conducting from The Juilliard School
in New York City.
His breadth of musical experience includes not only the genres of symphony and opera, but also the standard and avant-garde repertoires, including ballet, musical theater, and cinema-accompanying music. He has worked closely with the following living composers:
In America - Jacob Druckman (created
a workshop of his opera Medea), William Schuman, David Diamond, George
Tsontakis, Edward Campion, Ezequiel Vinao
In Canada - Randolph Peters and Harry Sommers (their operas)
In France and Europe - Martin Matalon ( the music for Fritz Lang’s
movie Metropolis), Mauricio Kagel and his lively music theater (Warsaw
Autumn Festival), Ahmed Essyad (Oratorio for the Theater Festival in Avignon,
France), Claude Ballif,Yves Prin, Pascal Dusapin, and celebrated composers
Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio.
Ferrandis has also collaborated with a wide variety of entertainment artists such as the actors and movie directors John Neville, Atom Egoyan, Colm Feore, Robert Lepage, François Girard, Stephen Wadsworth and choreographer Martha Clark.
Conducting credits include modern
and classical ballet companies in New York City, France and Italy. He
has conducted the bulk of symphonic repertoire with great success on several
continents and with a diversity of orchestras. In Asia, he conducted the
Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, The Seoul Philharmonic,
and worked with the Tokyo New National Theater. In Israel, he conducted
the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra; in Eastern Europe, the Polish Radio
Orchestra, the Prague State Theater Orchestra, the Belgrade Philharmonic
Orchestra; in Great Britain, the BBC Northern Orchestra; in Germany and
Austria: the Lübeck Hanseatic Orchestra, the Mainz Bach Chor, the
Wien Klang Forum; in Italy, the Orchestra Regio di Torino, the Opera of
Genoa Orchestra, the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia Orchestra; in Spain, the Pamplona
Sarasate Orchestra, the Madrid Radio-Television Orchestra, the Seville
Symphony Orchestra, the Valencia Orchestra. In France, he has conducted
in all the major cities including Bordeaux and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic
Orchestra.
Ferrandis has been music director of the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra,
was named associate conductor of the Juilliard Opera Center and has conducted
numerous concerts with the Aspen Festival Orchestras until 1994. He co-founded
the New Music Ensemble “Music Mobile” in New York City. In
Toronto, he conducted and covered major opera works at the Canadian Opera
Company and served as Music Director of the Banff Art Center (Alberta)
from 1991 to 2000.
He is regularly invited by the Radio France Orchestra, and with them has recorded three compact discs (two under the MFA label and one under the Naxos label). In 1997 he received a “Critic’s Grand Prize” for his conducting of Wozzeck by Manfred Gurlitt.
Bruno Ferrandis speaks his
native French, as well as Italian, Spanish, German, and Russian. When
time permits, he studies ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek to allow reading
of the great texts of biblical and mythological times.