Fabrice Bollon

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Fabrice Bollon is a French-born conductor who has been more active in abroad than in his native country. Unusually among conductors, he also maintains a significant career as a composer. Bollon was born in Paris in 1965. He studied conducting there with Michael Gielen and with the historical-performance pioneer Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and he also took conducting classes at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where he served as a musical assistant in the mid-1990s. Advanced studies with Georges Prêtre and Mauricio Kagel rounded off his training. For the first part of his career, Bollon divided his time between operatic and orchestral engagements. In 1996, he became the chief conductor of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra. In 2000, he left that post for the same one at the Chemnitz Opera in Germany. He also held guest conducting engagements with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI in Italy, among others. In 2009, Bollon became the general music director and chief conductor at the Theater Freiburg (which includes the Freiburg Opera and its associated orchestra), where his work has been widely acclaimed as audiences, and the orchestra itself, have grown. The Theater Freiburg under Bollon has toured the UK, performing Wagner's operas Parsifal and Tannhäuser, and Bollon has been in demand as a guest conductor at other opera houses including Moscow's Stanislavsky Theater and the Hungarian State Opera Budapest. He conducts German and Italian opera with equal enthusiasm. Bollon has instituted a strong recording program at the Theater Freiburg, leading recordings on the CPO label of lesser-known operas, including Francesco Cilea's L'Arlesiana and Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba. He revived Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's unknown opera I Gioielli della Madonna. Bollon has also led other south German orchestras in recordings of orchestral music for the Naxos label, including, with the Freiburg Philharmonic, two albums covering the four symphonies of Albéric Magnard, known as the French Bruckner, in 2019 and 2020. A noted composer, Bollon has heard his works performed by the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, the MDR Sinfonieorchester, and Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saabrücken Kaiserslautern. For the Theater Freiburg, he composed the opera Oscar und die Dame in Rosa, which won critical praise; he has also written instrumental music.
© James Manheim /TiVo