Pascal Verrot

A chief music director of the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra (Japan), Maestro Verrot made his international debut in 1985, when he won a special prize at the Tokyo International Conducting Competition and became Seiji Ozawa’s assistant at the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) from 1986 to 1990. Since then, his career has progressed rapidly. From 1991 to 1997, he was musical director of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, which has the longest history among Canadian orchestras, a chief conductor of the Shinsei Nihon Symphony Orchestra in Japan, a music director of the Orchestre de Picardie, artistic director of the Thétre Impérial de Compiègne, and Musical Director of the Opéra de Dijon as well as many guest conducting appearances such as the Montreal Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic and many others throughout Japan, the US, Russia and his native France.

A prominent opera conductor with the repertoire including operas of Mozart, Gounod, Massenet, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Debussy and Prokofiev, Pascal Verrot made his operatic debut in 1989 conducting Die Fledermaus at the Lyon Opera House, followed by performances with the Metz Opera, the Lille Opera, the Nantes Opera, the Nancy Opera, the Bordeaux Opera, the Maison de la Culture de l’Amiens. He has also conducted Gounod’s “Faust” for the Opening of the New Shanghai Opera Theatre. In Tokyo he has conducted “Le Nozze di Figaro”, “Don Giovanni”, “Cosi fan tutte.”

Maestro Verrot was awarded the Claude Rostand prize, granted by the “Professional Union of critics” for Prokovief’s “L’amore delle tre melarance” performed at the Opéra de Dijon in May 2010. His live recording with SPO of Debussy’s “La mer” by Debussy, and “Symphony in D minor” by Franck, were released by Fontec, receiving splendid reviews.

Verrot was Born in 1959 in Lyon, France. He studied at the Sorbonne and at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique where he was awarded a top prize for conducting.