Since his appointment as Music Director of the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra in 1990, Claude Lapalme has made his mark as a conductor, music director, orchestrator, arranger and composer. Paris newspaper Le Figaro has called him a “remarkable and superb” conductor; the Toronto Globe and Mail, “assured and highly effective”; the Havana Granma, “surprisingly dexterous, warm and sincere”; and the Calgary Herald, “vigorous and attentive to detail.”

A 1991 laureate of the Besançon international conducting competition, he has conducted orchestras around the world, including the URSS State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra as well as numerous ensembles in Canada, Hungary, the United States, Cuba, France and the Netherlands.

His own Red Deer Symphony has been featured on several CBC broadcasts and has collaborated with Alberta Ballet, Edmonton’s Pro Coro and Calgary’s Early Music Voices, among others. The orchestra has also toured the province of Alberta as far north as Fort McMurray.

As an arranger and orchestrator, Lapalme has worked with the likes of Marvin Hamlisch and Ian Tyson. His compositions have been heard throughout Europe and the United States. He has also served as an instructor at Burman University and both the universities of Toronto and Calgary.

While studying at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in the mid-1980s, Lapalme developed a lifelong interest in baroque historical practice. His continued interest led him to be the founder of Rosa Barocca, an ensemble in Alberta dedicated to the performance of baroque music on period instruments. The ensemble received the Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year (Small Ensemble) in 2023 for their collaboration with cellist Elinor Frey.

For his contributions to the cultural life of Alberta, Lapalme was the recipient of several awards of distinction from the City of Red Deer and the Province of Alberta.