Jean-Philippe Tremblay

Canadian Conductor and Violist

Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre de la Francophonie since its founding in 2001, Jean-Philippe Tremblay studied viola, composition, and conducting at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in Chicoutimi, Pierre Monteux School in Hancock, Maine, Tanglewood Music Center, and Royal Academy of Music in London. He has to date directed the orchestra in nearly 400 concerts across Canada, China, and the United States. In 2018 he conducted the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra in Toronto in a gala concert honouring Jessye Norman on the occasion of her receiving the prestigious Glenn Gould Prize. In recent seasons he has also been a guest conductor of such prestigious European orchestras as the Orchestre national de France, Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Wiener Kammerorchester, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias. On his highly praised debut, in a nationally televised concert, with the Radio Philharmonisch Orkest in The Netherlands, the critic Renée Reitsma wrote, ‘Conducting the orchestra with an energy that reminded me of fellow French-Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Tremblay had contagious enthusiasm while still being in full control’. He has conducted the Macao Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and China Philharmonic Orchestra in Asia, and, on the American continent, the symphony orchestras of Winnipeg, Montréal, Quebec, London (Ontario), Nova Scotia, Kitchener (Ontario), Ottawa, and Edmonton, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Manhattan School of Music Orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, and National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. In coming seasons, in addition to numerous return engagements, he will make his debut with orchestras in Tokyo and Beijing, and conduct concerts in Spain, England, and The Netherlands. Jean-Philippe Tremblay plays a Guillami viola made in 1755, on loan from the Canimex Group, of Drummondville, Quebec.