Pascal Rophé
An innovative and passionate musician, Pascal Rophé is one of France’s most sought-after conductors. He is currently Music Director of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, from the 2014/2015 season till 2023 and has been appointed Music Director of the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, effective from September 2022.

Known as one of the foremost exponents of the 20th century repertoire and invited regularly by all the major European ensembles dedicated to contemporary music, Pascal Rophé has also built up an equally enviable reputation for his interpretations of the great symphonic repertoire of the 18th and 19th centuries.

In France and abroad, Pascal Rophé works with many major orchestras including the two orchestras of Radio France, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Iceland Symphony, RTE National Symphony, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Suisse Romande, RAI Torino, Norwegian Radio Symphony, Monte-Carlo Philharmonic, SWR Sinfonieorchester and Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. Highly regarded in Asia, Pascal Rophé regularly conducts the NHK Symphony Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Seoul and China Philharmonic orchestras, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.

Recent highlights include highly successful debuts with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Arctic Philharmonic, Norway as well as concerts with the BBC Symphony, London Sinfonietta and the Croatian Radiotelevision Symphony in Zagreb. He also returned to Korea to conduct the Seoul Philharmonic and to Japan with the Hyogo PAC Orchestra His premieres included performances of the Concerto for violin and cello by Pascal Dusapin with Viktoria Mullova and Matthew Barley in Paris with the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and in Torino with the Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai Orchestra and he also recorded ballet music by Mantovani with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Pascal Rophé is committed to the operatic repertoire: Pelléas and Mélisande, Thaïs, The Flying Dutchman, The Dialogues of the Carmélites and contemporary operas as Michael Jarrell’s Galilée, Ahmed Essyad’s Héloïse et Abélard, Michèle Reverdy’s Medée, Bruno Mantovani’s L’autre Côté and Akhmatova.

For his extensive discography of recordings made with the orchestras of Radio France, BBC Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Suisse Romande, Liège Royal Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI Torino, among others. His last two recordings, one with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and the other with the Monte Carlo Orchestra, are composed of works by Michael Jarrell and Bruno Mantovani (Abstract, Symphony No. 1: L'idée fixe). Pascal Rophé has received numerous awards and has been unanimously praised by the music press.

From 1992, after studying at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and winning second prize at the 1988 Besançon International Competition, he collaborated closely with Pierre Boulez, David Robertson and the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire
In September 1971 the Orchestre Philharmonique des Pays de la Loire gave its first concerts in Nantes and Angers under the baton of Pierre Dervaux. Created on the initiative of Marcel Landowski, music director at the Ministry of Culture, the original orchestra was formed by merging the Nantes Opera Orchestra and the Angers Orchestra of the Société des Concerts Populaires. Thus, since its beginning, the orchestra has been based in two cities: Angers and Nantes.

Pierre Dervaux was its first music director, followed by Marc Soustrot from 1976 to 1994, and Hubert Soudant from 1994 to 2004. The orchestra became “national” in 1996 with further concerts in Germany, Hungary, Austria, China, Japan and elsewhere. Following the Brazilian Isaac Karabtchevsky, the American conductor John Axelrod was appointed music director in September 2010, and was succeeded in February 2013 by Pascal Rophé, who has brought his own characteristic contribution to the orchestra’s repertoire.

The orchestra is supported financially by the regional council of the Pays de la Loire, the Ministry of Culture, the Nantes and Angers town councils, and the Départements of Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire and Vendée.