The Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000, Yannick Nézet-Séguin signed a “lifelong” commitment with the Orchestre in September 2019. In September 2018, he became the third Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera (Met), New York; Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2012, he becomes Music and Artistic director in 2023 and extends his contract until 2030. In 2016-2017, he became a lifetime Honorary Member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. After a ten-year tenure with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, he was appointed Honorary Conductor in 2019, a position he holds to this day.
He has worked regularly with many leading European ensembles and enjoyed many close collaborations with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Philharmoniker, Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk and Chamber Orchestra of Europe as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he was Principal Guest Conductor from 2008 to 2014. His opera interpretations have been acclaimed in many of the world’s most famous houses, including the Metropolitan Opera (New York), La Scala (Milan), and the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden, London), in the Salzburg Festival, as well as in such renowned concert halls as the Musikverein (Vienna), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Festspielhaus (Baden-Baden) and Carnegie Hall (New York).
Yannick Nézet-Séguin records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon label while continuing his role in the collaborative partnership between ATMA Classique and the OM. His honours include being named Artist of the Year by the prestigious magazine Musical America and receiving the Virginia Parker Prize, a Royal Philharmonic Society Award (London), Canada’s National Arts Centre Award (Ottawa), the Prix Denise-Pelletier, awarded by the Quebec government, the Medal of Honor of the National Assembly of Quebec, the Oskar Morawetz Award and Orchestras Canada’s Betty Webster Award, the Rubies Award by Opera Canada; the Grammy Awards of: the Best Orchestral Performance (Florence Price: Symphonies No. 1 and 3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, 2022); the Best Opera recording (Metropolitan Opera : Fire shut up in my bones by Terence Blanchard, 2023); the Best Vocal recording (Renée Fleming, Soprano; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Piano : Voice of Nature, The Anthropocene, 2023).
Yannick Nézet-Séguin holds eight honorary doctorates (Université du Québec à Montréal, 2011; Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, 2014; Rider University, Princeton, 2015; McGill University, Montréal, 2017, Université de Montréal, 2017; Pennsylvania University, 2018; Université Laval, Québec, 2021; Drexel University, Philadelphia, 2023) and has been made a Companion of the Order of Canada (2012), Companion of the Quebec Order for the Arts and Literature (2015), Officer of the National Order of Quebec (2015), Officer of the Ordre de Montréal (2017), honorary member of the Royal Conservatory of Music (2020), Officer of the French Republic Order for the Arts and Literature (2021).
