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Pascal Verrot became the musical director of the Orchestre de Picardie in January 2003.
He studied at the Sorbonne and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris where he obtained a first prize for conducting. He then perfected this skill alongside Franco Ferrara at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Sienna, Italy.
He then came to the attention of Seiji Ozawa at the International Conducting Competition in Tokyo, where he was a laureate in 1985, and became Ozawa’s assistant at the Boston Symphony Orchestra from September 1986 to June 1990. During that period, meeting Leonard Bernstein was decisive.Then, Pascal Verrot was the Quebec Symphony Orchestra’s musical director between 1991 and late 1997.
During that period he conducted the Boston and San Antonio Symphony Orchestras, the Utah State Symphony Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Montreal and Toronto. In Japan he was principal conductor of the Shinsei Nihon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, returning each year for several concert series.
Since 2001 he has been the principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic and in 2006 he was appointed main guest conductor of the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra.
He completes his activities in France and Japan by a steady relationship with Orchestras in the United States and the Texas Festival Institute. He also made his debut in Germany in April 2007 by a guest appearance with the Weimar Stadtskapelle.
Pascal Verrot has also been the musical director of several operatic productions, notably Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Gilbert Bécaud’s L’Opéra d’Aran, Massenet’s Don Quichotte as well as the ballets Daphnis et Chloé by Ravel and Le Festin de l’Araignée by Roussel. He also conducted Gounod’s Faust for the opening of the new Shanghai Opera House. More recently he was at the New National Theatre in Tokyo for productions of The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutte.
Since 2004, The Lille Opera House has regularly invited Pascal Verrot with Orchestre de Picardie: Don Giovanni in a Théâtre de la Monnaie production, then Madama Butterfly, a new production with stage director Jean-François Sivadier which he also conducted at the Nantes and Nancy Opera Houses with their respective orchestras.
Another invitation in March 2006 for La Flûte Enchantée at the Lille Opera House and the Caen Theatre was followed in November 2007 by L’Italiana in Algieri with stage director Sandrine Anglade which was then performed in Maison de la Culture in Amiens.
Meanwhile, in May 2006, Pascal Verrot was invited to conduct Werther by Massenet at the Bordeaux Opera House.
His discography includes recordings of a wide repertoire for labels such as Erato, Fnac Music, Arion, MFA and Auvidis. Recently, with Orchestre de Picardie he has recorded for Calliope
the Bernstein opera Trouble in Tahiti together with pieces by Copland featuring trumpet player David Guerrier. In 2007, this recording was awarded the Orphée d’Or of the ”Académie du disque lyrique”.
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