A conductor, composer, pianist and writer, he was born in Paris where he studied at the Conservatoire and then specialized at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He began his conducting career as Daniel Barenboim's assistant in Paris and Bayreuth and in 1991 he was Pierre Boulez's assistant in the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris. In the following years, he was appointed music director at the Rouen Opera, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Santa Fe Opera and the Jerusalem Symphony (from 2011 to present).

Active in both opera and symphony, he has conducted in the most prestigious theatres on the international opera scene: Metropolitan in New York, Los Angeles Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, as well as in Leipzig, Dresden, Madrid, Bologna, Rome, Venice, Turin, Tokyo, Oslo and Copenhagen. He made his debut in 1993 at the Bregenzer Festspiele with Nabucco and later Fidelio, thus initiating an interesting collaboration with Austrian theatres, in particular with the Wiener Staatsoper where, since 1997, he has conducted more than two hundred performances.

As for his activity in the symphonic field, in addition to having conducted the major French orchestras, he has collaborated with the Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra Rai di Torino, London Symphony and Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony and Philharmonic, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Nagoya Philharmonia. He has also performed in the dual capacity of pianist and conductor. His most successful concerts include Ravel's Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera.

As a composer, he wrote symphonic compositions (one recalls Gipsy Dance for violin and orchestra), three operas and over fifty compositions for soprano, mezzo-soprano and baritone. Excerpts of his operas have been sung and recorded by important artists such as Netrebko, Dessay, Peretyatko, and Damrau (who recorded some arias on his CD Damrau Forever).

As a writer, he has published an essay 'Music in Every Sense' and a novel on the life of Gustav Mahler, together with the orchestration of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.

Recent engagements include: Faust, L'Elisir d'amore, Turandot, Don Pasquale, Andrea Chénier, Carmen, Werther, Manon at the Vienna State Opera; Enface du Christ and La Damnation de Faust in Lisbon; Les Contes d'Hoffmann in Vienna, Dresden and at La Scala in Milan; Werther in Bergen; Symphony No. 4 Mahler with the Wurth Philharmonic; Manon in Paris (Champs Elysées); a series of concerts in Israel with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste and with the Haydn Orchestra; Mahler’s 4^th Symphony with the Wurth Philarmoniker; Manon in Paris (Champs Elysées); a series of concerts in Israel on the podium of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste; a new production of Gioconda at La Scala; Faust and symphony concerts at La Fenice in Venice; Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Savonlinna; Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci as well as a series of symphony concerts at the Comunale di Bologna and Reggio Emilia; Die Tote Stadt in Bucharest; Rossini's Stabat Mater; La Fille du régiment in Cagliari; Pelléas et Mélisande and a series of concerts in Budapest and with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra; La Bohème, Mignon, and Lakmé in Liège and Tosca for the Tokyo Spring Festival.

June 2023