Sylvain Gasançon

Sylvain Gasançon won first prize in the International Eduardo Mata Conducting Competition in Mexico in 2005. The following year, he was awarded second prize at the International Jorma Panula Conducting Competition in Vaasa, Finland.

He has quickly become an established conductor on the international scene. He consistently receives public and critical acclaim for his powerful and musical interpretations of works that range from Brahms to Berio, and from Messiaen to Korngold and Schoenberg, with a special interest in the unknown or forgotten repertoire.

In North America and Europe he has conducted the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Magdeburgische Philharmonie, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, the Vaasa City Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Lorraine, the Orchestre de Bretagne, Sinfonia Rotterdam, the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, the Sofia Festival Orchestra and the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa.

Gasançon enjoys a close relationship with Latin America and has led nearly all of the major orchestras in the region, including the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the Argentine National Symphony, the Bogotá Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile. He returns regularly to Mexico to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra, the OFUNAM and the Orquesta del Palacio de Bellas Artes with the Ballet Nacional in Mexico City.

He has collaborated with soloists of prestige including Peter Donohoe, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Lara St. John, Rachel Barton Pine, Simone Lamsma, Leonard Elschenbroich, Nicolas Dautricourt, Benedetto Lupo, Alex Klein, Lucas Macías Navarro, the Catalyst Quartet, Gwyneth Wentink, Nathalie Forget, Wonmi Kim and Fabio Martino.

His first conducting teacher was Jean-Sébastien Béreau. He subsequently received guidance from conductors Gerhard Markson at the Mozarteum Salzburg, Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Fondazione Chigiana in Siena, Jorma Panula and Pinchas Zukerman at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and Jorma Panula in Lausanne and Saint Petersburg. He graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he studied harmony, counterpoint, analysis and orchestration.

Born in Metz, France, he began studying music at the age of five. He gave his first violin concerts at a very early age and studied at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles with Prof. Endre Kleve.