Marc Minkowski
plays an active role in promoting classical music both though his exciting career as conductor, and as an artistic administrator. Artistic director of Les Musiciens du Louvre that he founded in 1982, he created the Ré Majeure Festival on Île de Ré (French Atlantic coast) in 2011. General Manager of the Opéra National de Bordeaux from 2016 to 2021, Artistic Director of the Mozartwoche (Mozart Week) in Salzburg from 2013 to 2017, he has been the Artistic Advisor of Kanazawa Orchestra (Japan) from 2018 to 2022. In 2018, he was honored as a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

After studying the bassoon, Marc Minkowski began conducting at an early age, attending maestro Charles Bruck’s academy at the Pierre Monteux Memorial School, Hancock, Maine. At the age of nineteen, he founded Les Musiciens du Louvre, an ensemble that played an active role in the revival of Baroque music. Under his direction, Les Musiciens du Louvre explored both French Baroque music and Handel, before expanding their repertoire to include Mozart, Rossini, Offenbach, Bizet, and Wagner.

Marc Minkowski regularly appears in many of the world's most prestigious opera houses and concert halls. In Paris, he has conducted Idomeneo, Platée, Die Zauberflöte, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Iphigénie en Tauride, Mireille and Alceste at the Opéra national de Paris; La Belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Carmen and Die Feen at the Théâtre du Châtelet; and La Dame blanche, Pelléas et Mélisande, Cendrillon, Die Fledermaus, Mârouf and Manon at the Opéra Comique. At the Opéra National de Bordeaux, he has conducted Pelléas et Mélisande, La Vie Parisienne, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Manon, Carmen, and Robert le Diable.

He has conducted several operas at the Salzburg Festival (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mitridate, Così fan tutte, Lucio Silla, Die Fledermaus), and at Aix-en-Provence festival (L’incoronazione di Poppea, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Don Giovanni, Les Boréades and Il turco in Italia).

His other international engagements have included: San Francisco (Don Giovanni), Brussels (Les Huguenots, Hamlet, and Il Trovatore at La Monnaie), Zurich, Geneva (Les Huguenots), Valencia (The Tales of Hoffmann), Venice, Moscow (first Pelléas et Mélisande ever on a russian stage at the Stanislavski Theatre, which won many awards), Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna (Hamlet, Fidelio, Le Nozze di figaro and Der Fliegende Holländer at the Theater an der Wien, Alcina and Gluck’s Armide at the Vienna State Opera). Since the 2014-2015 season, he has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Idomeneo, Traviata, Don Giovanni) and the Teatro alla Scala (Lucio Silla, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and l’Heure espagnole). He conducted Da Ponte Trilogy (director Ivan Alexandre) at the Drottningholm Festival, at the Royal Opera of Versailles Château, in Barcelona (Liceu) and Bordeaux National Opera.

With an active interest in collaborating with a diverse range of directors and choreographers, he has worked with François Abou-Salem, Chistopher Alden, David Alden, Ivan Alexandre, Philippe Béziat, Robert Carsen, Jérôme Deschamps, Richard Eyre, Jürgen Flimm, Joan Font, Achim Freyer, La Fura dels Baus, Jean-Claude Gallotta, Romain Gilbert, Klaus Michael Grüber, Claus Guth, Karl Ernst and Ursel Herrmann, Kasper Holten, Vincent Huguet, Nicholas Hytner, Nicolas Joel, Charles Jude, Waldemar Kamer, Natalia Korczakowska, Günter Krämer, Martin Kušej, Jorge Lavelli, Benjamin Lazar, Macha Makeïeff, Satoshi Miyagi, Sergio Morabito, Mark Morris, David McVicar, Jean-Pierre Miquel, Hans Neuenfels, Adrian Noble, Pascal Paul-Harang, Laurent Pelly, Jean-Louis Pichon, Pier Luigi Pizzi, David Pountney, Olivier Py, Marshall Pynkoski, Emilio Sagi, Karine Saporta, Laura Scozzi, Florent Siaud, Philippe Sireuil, Jacopo Spirei, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Jossi Wieler, Robert Wilson.

Marc Minkowski is also in high demand on the concert platform in standard and modern symphonic repertoire, conducting orchestras such as DSO Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, BBCSO, City of Birmingham SO, Kanazawa Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Mariinsky Orchestra, Spanish National Orchestra, SWR Stuttgart, Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, Kanazawa Ensemble, Tours Symphony Orchestra, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin and del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino orchestra. among others. His vast repertoire ranges from Rameau to Adams, and his recorded oeuvre includes all of the Schubert symphonies and Haydn’s London symphonies, Mozart’s 40th and 41st Symphonies, and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique to mention just a few highlights. A pioneer in combining equestrian art with classical music, he has also worked with Bartabas to create several shows.

In his 2022/23 season, his projects include La Juive in Grand Théâtre de Genève, followed by La Périchole at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, then Mitridate directed by Satoshi Miyagi in Berlin Staatsoper, Mozart’s Da Ponte trilogy at the Royal Opera of Versailles Château, followed by Manon at the Liceu in Barcelona. In concert, he conducts the Wiener Symphoniker and Wiener Philharmoniker, the Musikalische Akademie des Nationaltheater-Orchesters Mannheim, the Prague Philharmonia and the Saarländisches Staatsorchester. He will also conduct Handel’s Alcina on tour (Europe) with Les Musiciens du Louvre.