Chef d'orchestre I Conductor
BIOGRAPHY
Musical and artistic director of the Gironde Symphony Orchestra since 2008, Lionel Gaudin-Villard also conducts the Sinfonia Orchestra and the Ensemble Vocal Martenot.
Since October 2020, the Gironde Symphony Orchestra is the first professional classical formation in residence of a private theatre in Bordeaux, the Fémina Theatre.
Great recognition for Lionel Gaudin-Villard whose educational activities have been unanimous among the public for more than 15 years. In 2008, he creates the Mini Concerts that to awaken the school audience to the world of orchestra and classical music.
The Mini Concerts were honoured with the Audiens Generation Foundation Award and the Bordeaux City Award in 2018.
With these unique concerts, attended by nearly 35,000 young people each year, Lionel Gaudin-Villard develops the Gironde Symphony Orchestra and diversifies its repertoire. He commissioned numerous works and created a real springboard for young artists. In 2012, he created Les Fables de La Fontaine then Jack et le haricot magique in 2014 and Hansel et Gretel in 2016 by Sacha Chaban, Un air de Raiponce in 2017 by Sally Galet, Ulysse et les sirènes in 2018 by Jérémie Voin. He collaborated with the Jeune Ballet d'Aquitaine and created La Reine des fées in 2016 and La Boîte à joujoux in 2017. He also commissioned and created the ballets Kuolema in 2019 and Le Chaperon Rouge in 2020 with Compagnie Sohrab Chitan.
Between 1996 and 2020, he collaborated with many opera companies including Figaro-ci, Figaro-la and Maryse Ghibaudo for which he directed several comic operas including Valse de Vienne of Viarney, La Poule Noire of Manuel Rosenthal, Il Campanello di notte of Donizetti and Orpheus in the underworld of Offenbach. He conducts for the Compagnie Les Chants de Garonne and Emmanuel Gardeil, Mozart's operas Les Noces de Figaro in 2017, Don Giovanni in 2018 and Le Barbier de Séville of Rossini in 2019. In 2017, with La Fabrique Opéra de Bordeaux, he conducts Carmen of Bizet in front of nearly 10,000 spectators between Bordeaux and Angouleme.
Equally passionate about choral singing, Lionel Gaudin-Villard conducts a vast sacred repertoire from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries with numerous Bordeaux choirs: Mozart’s Requiem (Sussmayer and Beyer versions), Cherubini, Fauré and Verdi, "Ein Deutsches Requiem" of Brahms, the Te Deum and Stabat Mater of Dvorak. We also mention the a cappella repertoire and/or with accompaniment of Fauré, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Messiaen, Duruflé, Poulenc, Bartok, Barber, Bernstein, Copland, Whitacre, Pärt, Lauridsen...
Lionel Gaudin-Villard, born in 1972, studied music at the conservatories of Bayonne and Bordeaux. In 1998, he obtained the diploma of conducting orchestra unanimously from the conducting class of Robert Delcroix. Prior to that, he attended the choir conducting classes of Eliane Lavail and Michel Tranchant between 1995 and 1998 in parallel with the classes of harmony and composition, clarinet, piano and lyric singing.
He began a prolific career as a guest conductor in France and Europe, mainly in Austria and Russia. He assists the Viennese conductor Hans Graf during the 1998/99 season of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine for some programs especially dedicated to the works of Manuel de Falla and Shostakovitch. In 2000, he assists Alexander Kantorov and conducted the St Persterburg Klassika Orchestra. In 2002, he assists John Nelson at the time as head of the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris (now the Paris Chamber Orchestra) in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Choral fantasy.
After having had a good career for several years in Europe, notably in Norway, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Germany, he decided to refocus his activity on Bordeaux. He created his own orchestra responding to his ideas and his method of conducting. The Gironde Symphony Orchestra was born in 2008.