Celebrated French conductor Lionel Bringuier will makes his debut leading the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this week. Peter Czornyj, vice president of artistic operations at DSO, calls Bringuier “one of the most exciting young conductors of today, with a range of repertoire that is inspiring and stimulating.”
Named the youngest ever assistant conductor of the LA Philharmonic at only 20 years old in 2007, Bringuier was promoted to resident conductor in 2011 where he served for two years. Now 32, he has already led the world’s major orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Munich Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
“Bringuier has a truly wonderful feeling for orchestral color and contour, all perfect qualifications for a great Ravel and Beethoven conductor,” Czornyi says.
“Bringuier has a truly wonderful feeling for orchestral color and contour, all perfect qualifications for a great Ravel and Beethoven conductor." – Peter Czornyj
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The concert, part of DSO’s Classical Program, includes Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, La valse and Boléro.
“I have recorded these works by Ravel and first conducted his Bolero at only 15 years old," Bringuier says. "From that very first moment, I was amazed at how the composer, a master of orchestration, managed to build the progressions throughout the piece.”
In the first half of the concert, Bringuier will perform Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto with acclaimed French pianist Hélène Grimaud.
In addition to being a pianist, Grimaud is an environmental activist who in 2016 recorded an album called Water hoping to draw attention to the plight of the lack of pure drinking water in many countries in the developing world.
Grimaud also has a passion for wolves — she studies and raises them. In her memoir Wild Harmonies: A Life of Music and Wolves, Grimaud describes her life-changing first encounter with a wolf hybrid in 1991. Since then she has worked to protect the threatened wolf species and has founded a wolf preserve in New York.
Grimaud has been on a tour of the U.S. that focuses on performances of Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto and Ravel’s Concerto in G Major at venues, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Bringuier has performed with Grimaud on many occasions and considers her a friend.
“We last performed this piece together in Leipzig and I absolutely love her interpretation," Bringuier says. "I'm excited to share it with the Dallas musicians and audience."
Bringuier conducts through March 24. Tickets start at $29.