Marc Trautmann – Biography

Marc Trautmann was born in Bordeaux. After studying at the Paris National Conservatoire and with Sergiu Celibidache at the University of Mainz and the Munich Philharmonic, he began his career at the age of 24 as assistant conductor of the Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, where he gave a great many public and educational concerts over the season. He went on to work as assistant conductor at the Opéra National de Paris-Bastille on numerous productions, including the major revival of Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise staged by Peter Sellars with José van Dam, Adriana Lecouvreur with Mirella Freni, and also Un ballo in maschera with Dennis O'Neill.

In 1988, together with first soloists of the Paris Opera – among them Frédéric Laroque, Benoît Fromanger and Pierre Lenert –, he founded the sextet Simple Symphony, with which he gave, as pianist, a great many concerts throughout France, in the United States, in Morocco, for the French Television and for Radio France.

He has conducted many orchestras on the international stage, in Western and Eastern Europe as well as in North and South America, Japan, China, Brazil, New Zealand, and Australia.

Marc Trautmann’s repertoire ranges from the great Baroque to contemporary works, in both the symphonic and the operatic realms. Often called upon to conduct rare or complex productions, he has led two major world premieres of opera:
- Snow in August, by the Chinese composer Xu ShuYa, libretto and staging by the Nobel Prize laureate in Literature Gao Xingjian, with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan – the first Western-style classical opera ever composed in Chinese. The work was revived at the Opéra de Marseille, again under his musical direction.
- La Voie écarlate by Jacques Castérède, libretto by star philosopher Michel Serres, with the Orchestre National de Bordeaux.

Marc Trautmann has also:
- restored the score of Reynaldo Hahn’s Le Marchand de Venise and conducted its North American premiere with Alain Fondary and Maryse Castets at Portland Opera
- conducted in Canada the first opera ever written for a contemporary gamelan ensemble: How it Storms by Alan Cole, with Toronto’s renowned Evergreen Club ensemble
- conducted the music of Walt Disney’s Fantasia with the Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, replacing the soundtrack live and in synchronisation with the picture
- supervised and conducted the first tour of a symphony orchestra from the People’s Republic of China across France, in 2000.

For some years now he has also been giving summer masterclasses in Savoie for singers wishing to explore the relationship between the conductor and the opera stage, as well as for youth orchestras in the Normandy region.

As a member of Opera America and the American Symphony Orchestra League, he has taken part in several international symposiums and conferences, which have given him insight into international co-productions, the management of an orchestra and an opera house and the work of a music director, and the opportunity to meet key figures of the international music scene.