Yannick Nézet-Séguin | Biography

Yannick Nézet-Séguin became third Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, New York in September 2018. That same year, at the end of a decade-long tenure as Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, he was appointed the orchestra’s Honorary Conductor. He remains Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, a role he has held since 2012, and Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montreal), where he has served since 2000. In September 2019, it was announced that he had accepted a lifetime contract with the Orchestre Métropolitain – a move that reflects the profound mutual trust between players, management and conductor.

Yannick studied piano, conducting, composition, and chamber music at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in his native Montreal and choral conducting at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey before going on to study with renowned conductors, most notably Carlo Maria Giulini. By the time he made his European debut in 2004 he had already founded his own professional orchestra and vocal ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, going on to conduct all the major ensembles in Canada. In 2008 he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a post he held until 2014.

His inaugural concerts as Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra received rave reviews and included his Carnegie Hall debut, conducting the Verdi Requiem. Alongside regular subscription and touring programmes, he leads three Carnegie Hall concerts each season. He has now extended his commitment to the orchestra until at least the 2025–26 season.

Nézet-Séguin is equally at home on the concert platform and in the opera pit. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2008 with a new production of Roméo et Juliette, returning to the city for the 2010 Mozartwoche, Don Giovanni at the 2010 and 2011 summer festivals, concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2015, Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in 2016 and two appearances with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks at the 2019 summer festival. He made his debut at the Teatro alla Scala in 2011, has also conducted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper and Netherlands Opera, and has helped lead a highly successful Mozart cycle at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus with the COE. Previously Chorus Master, Assistant Conductor and Music Adviser at Opéra de Montréal, during his time there he led productions of operas as varied as L’incoronazione di Poppea, Così fan tutte, Wozzeck and Salome.

Following his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2009 with an acclaimed production of Carmen, he has returned each season, leading performances of Don Carlo, Faust, La traviata, Rusalka and Otello. The 2016–17 season saw him take the helm of a revival of Der fliegende Höllander, his first Wagner opera with the company. This was followed by Parsifal in February 2018 and by Richard Strauss’s Elektra a month later. In his inaugural season as Music Director, Nézet-Séguin conducted La traviata, Pelléas et Mélisande and Dialogues des Carmélites, as well as conducting the Met Orchestra outside the opera house for the first time, in two concerts at Carnegie Hall. The 2019–20 season saw him lead productions of Turandot and Wozzeck.  

After a year focused primarily on creating innovative streamed performances with both the Orchestre Métropolitain (including a Beethoven symphony cycle for DG Stage) and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin began the 2021–22 season reunited with the Met Orchestra. Two open-air concerts featuring Mahler’s Symphony No.2 were followed by a performance of the Verdi Requiem to mark the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. Then came the historic occasion of the opening night of the opera season with the Met’s first performance of an opera by a black composer: Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

The conductor’s forthcoming plans include concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and bass-baritone Davóne Tines, combining Beethoven symphonies with contemporary works by Tines and Igée Dieudonné, John Adams, and Anthony Davis (5–7 November); Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice at the Met (November/December); and the world premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Tuba Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra and soloist Carol Jantsch, the orchestra’s principal tuba (9 December).

Yannick Nézet-Séguin signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in May 2018, continuing a long-term partnership that had begun in 2012 with the launch of a major new cycle of Mozart’s mature operas recorded at Baden-Baden and all starring Rolando Villazón. Six have been released: Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro (the latter pair Grammy nominated), La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte.

Nézet-Séguin’s debut orchestral recordings with Deutsche Grammophon were released in September 2013. In the first he conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in its first studio album release for a major label since a recording with DG in 1997. It featured Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Stokowski transcriptions of music by Bach and Stravinsky. The second recording, with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, offered Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony and selected Romances from opp. 6 & 73, in which Nézet-Séguin accompanies Lisa Batiashvili at the piano. His recording of the complete Schumann symphonies with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe was released in 2014, while August 2015 saw the release of an album of Rachmaninov Variations with Daniil Trifonov and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Nézet-Séguin then joined forces again with the COE to record the complete Mendelssohn symphonies – a 3‑CD set released in June 2017. Duets, recorded with Rolando Villazón, Ildar Abdrazakov and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, was issued three months later.

Released in February 2018, Visions of Prokofiev showcases Lisa Batiashvili’s performances of Prokofiev’s violin concertos together with arrangements of three excerpts from his stage works. Nézet-Séguin is once more at the helm of the COE. After giving acclaimed live performances of the work, he and the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded Bernstein’s Mass, which was added to the DG catalogue (its first appearance there) in March 2018. Released three months later, The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra Collection is a 6CD set of previously unissued live recordings hand-picked by Nézet-Séguin.

Destination Rachmaninov – Departure, the first of two albums made with Daniil Trifonov and the Philadelphia Orchestra devoted to the complete Rachmaninov piano concertos, was released in October 2018. Featuring Nos.2 and 4, it won the Concerto award at the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Awards. Its companion piece, Destination Rachmaninov – Arrival, featuring Concertos Nos.1 and 3 together with Trifonov’s transcription of Vocalise and The Silver Sleigh Bells, was released in October 2019 and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Nézet-Séguin’s next album featured a recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, a monumental work performed at Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall to mark the centenary of its US premiere. Captured by DG, their interpretation was released in January 2020.

Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra have now embarked on a new Rachmaninov project for which they will record the composer’s three symphonies and other orchestral works. The first of three albums, pairing Symphony No.1 with the Symphonic Dances, was released in January 2021 (“an altogether stunning album” – Gramophone).

Having returned to his piano during lockdown, Nézet-Séguin released his debut DG album as soloist rather than conductor in June 2021. Introspection features works by a variety of composers, from Bach, Haydn and Mozart to Shostakovich and Berio (“a wonderful cornucopia of miniature treats” – BBC Music Magazine). This was followed by the digital release of his recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 by the pioneering African-American composer Florence Price in September. These will be issued on CD in January 2022.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s honours include Musical America’s Artist of the Year (2016), ECHO KLASSIK’s Conductor of the year (2014), a Royal Philharmonic Society Award; a National Arts Centre Award; the Virginia Parker Prize; the Prix Denise-Pelletier; and the Oskar Morawetz Award. He holds seven honorary doctorates, from the University of Québec in Montreal (2011), Curtis Institute of Philadelphia (2014), Westminster Choir College of Rider University (2015), McGill University in Montreal (2017), Université de Montréal (2017), Penn University (2018) and Université Laval (2021). He has been appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada (2012), Companion to the Order of Arts and Letters of Québec (2015), Officer of the Order of Québec (2015), Officer of the Order of Montreal (2017) and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music (2020).

10/2021