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The Salle Pleyel
Orchestre de Paris © A Deniau
L’Orchestre
de Paris
The Orchestre de Paris, a successor to the "Société des concerts du Conservatoire" founded in 1828, gave its inaugural concert in November 1967 under the direction of Charles Munch. After the death of its founding father, the Orchestra was directed successively by Herbert von Karajan, Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim (who gave the orchestra a permanent amateur chorus in 1976), Semyon Bychkov, Christoph von Dohnányi and Christoph Eschenbach. Paavo Järvi was named Music Director for the 2010/2011 season; his directorship was recently extended until 2015-2016.
The orchestra follows in the steps of the Société des concerts du Conservatoire with a repertoire that focuses essentially on French classical music. It also plays a major role in promoting 20th and 21st century repertoires by proposing residencies to composers, performing numerous new works (Xenakis, Berio, Dusapin, Mantovani, Saariaho, Stroppa, Takemitsu, etc.) and presenting exceptional cycles and programmes on key figures in 20th century French music (Messiaen, Dutilleux, Boulez, etc.)
During the 2011/2012 season, the orchestra will perform the world premiere of Echodaimónon, a piano concerto composed by Philippe Manoury for the Festival Agora. The orchestra will also perform the French premiere of Richard Dubugnon's Battlefield, a concerto for two pianos and double orchestra jointly commissioned by the Orchestre de Paris, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
Paavo Järvi © Gérard Uferas
The Orchestre de Paris is a regular guest of the music capitals of the world, and as such has developed a special relationship with New York, London, Vienna, Berlin and Amsterdam, the Scandinavian countries and Russia. Special ties have also been created with Chinese, Japanese and Korean audiences, for whom the Orchestre will perform in November 2011 with Paavo Järvi at the baton – its fourteenth tour in East Asia since the early 1970s.
With young people among its top priorities, the Orchestre has developed a variety of educational activities (educational and family concerts, open rehearsals, workshops, classes in residence, discovery tours, etc.) and continuously reaches out to new audiences (kindergarten to university audiences, families, etc.) During the 2011/2012 season, the Orchestre musicians will introduce nearly 40,000 children to symphonic music.
The Orchestre's discography reflects its versatility. The first recording under Paavo Järvi's direction, a programme of Bizet, was released in 2010. A second album, Fauré's Requiem, with participation from Matthias Goerne, Philippe Jaroussky, Éric Picard and the Orchestre de Paris chorus, was released by Virgin Classics on September 19th.
To share its musicians' talent with the greatest number of people, the Orchestre has expanded its audiovisual activity by creating partnerships with Radio Classique, Arte and Mezzo. Supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Mairie de Paris, the Orchestre de Paris and its 119 musicians will perform over one hundred concerts this season, sixty of which will take place at the Salle Pleyel as its resident orchestra.
The Orchestre de Paris is grateful to its sponsors: Eurogroup, its main sponsor, the Caisse d'Epargne Ile de France (initiatives for youth), and Le Cercle de l'Orchestre de Paris.
The Orchestre de Paris
Paavo Järvi, musical director
Bruno Hamard, general director
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