Conductor, soloist, composer, teacher: Jean-François Verdier has been hailed by critics as “an extraordinary talent.”
A principal clarinetist with the Paris National Opera and a professor at the Paris Conservatory, he is regarded as one of Europe’s finest clarinetists and has won numerous international competitions in various disciplines (Tokyo, Vienna, Antwerp, Colmar, and Lugano). He has performed under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, Valery Gergiev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pierre Boulez, Armin and Philippe Jordan, Christof Von Dohnanyi, Gustavo Dudamel, Andris Nelsons… and, notably, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.
Winner of the Bruno Walter Prize at the 2001 Lugano International Conducting Competition, he served as assistant to Philippe Jordan and Kent Nagano and as resident conductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon from 2008 to 2010.
Since 2010, he has served as artistic director of the Victor Hugo Orchestra, a renowned and rapidly growing ensemble with which he has recorded several award-winning albums (two Chocs Classica, a Choc Jazz, Diapason d’Or, two Diamants from Opéra Magazine, the Critics’ Prize in Germany, The Gramophone’s Choice, and The Times’ Choice) and an IMAX feature film with the renowned soprano Renée Fleming.
He is in high demand at major international venues such as the Paris National Opera (for which he has directed over 100 productions and filmed two ballet films for the cinema), Munich, Tokyo, Vienna, Madrid, Montreal, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Bern, Brussels, Mexico City, Bari, Salerno, Nagoya, the Bolshoi in Moscow, and Warsaw. He is also a guest conductor with France’s leading national orchestras and opera companies.
He has collaborated with Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Ludovic Tézier, Sandrine Piau, Piotr Beczala, Isabelle Faust, Karine Deshayes, Sergei Nakariakov, Anne Queffélec, Nemanja Radulovic, and François Leleux. He serves on the jury of international competitions alongside Leonard Slatkin, Jorma Panula, Marin Alsop, and Dennis Russell-Davies.
As a composer, he writes musical tales and mini-operas for children. His works have been performed by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Metz National Orchestra, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Paris Chamber Orchestra… at the Philharmonie de Paris, the Opéra Bastille (auditorium), the Opéra de Rouen, the Dessau Opera, and the Opéra national du Capitole de Toulouse.
