{"id":5634,"date":"2024-09-17T14:37:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T12:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ensemblepygmalion.com\/raphael-pichon\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T08:22:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T07:22:47","slug":"raphael-pichon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ensemblepygmalion.com\/en\/raphael-pichon\/","title":{"rendered":"rapha\u00ebl pichon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u2018Pichon, in a short time has become one of the most interesting conductors<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0in classical music.\u2019 (New York Times<\/em>)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A leader of his generation, Rapha\u00ebl Pichon develops original and highly personal projects, while drawing on a rich tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A leader of his generation, Rapha\u00ebl Pichon develops original and highly personal projects, while drawing on a rich tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rapha\u00ebl Pichon began his musical training with the violin, piano, and singing. As a young professional singer, he performed under the direction of Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, and Ton Koopman, as well as with Geoffroy Jourdain’s Les Cris de Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, he founded Pygmalion, a choir and orchestra performing on period instruments. Notable projects in recent years include: the creation of Trauernacht<\/em>, based on music of Bach and directed by Katie Mitchell (2014); the rediscovery and staging of Rossi’s Orfeo<\/em> at the Op\u00e9ra National de Lorraine and the Op\u00e9ra Royal de Versailles (2016); the Vespers <\/em>with Pierre Audi (Holland Festival, BBC Proms, Royal Chapel of Versailles, Leipzig Bach Festival); a staged version of A German Requiem <\/em>by Jochen Sandig at the submarine base in Bordeaux; stage productions of The Magic Flute<\/em> by Simon McBurney (2018); Mozart’s Requiem<\/em> with Romeo Castellucci (2019); Samson<\/em>, a loose recreation of Rameau’s lost opera, with Claus Guth (2024) at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; and Lakm\u00e9 <\/em>(2022) and L’Autre Voyage <\/em>with music by Schubert (2024) at the Op\u00e9ra-Comique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, he created the Pulsations festival in Bordeaux. In 2024, in partnership with Arte and France Musique, he embarked on the Les Chemins de Bach project with Pygmalion, a grand journey on foot and by bicycle between Arnstadt and L\u00fcbeck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a guest conductor, Rapha\u00ebl Pichon has conducted the Freiburger Barockorchester, Musicaeterna, the Scintilla of the Zurich Opera, the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, the Mozarteum Orchester, and most recently the Orchestra of St. Luke\u2019s at Carnegie Hall. The 2025\u20132026 season marks his debut at the Paris Opera, as well as with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His recordings are released on the harmonia mundi label: the imaginary opera Enfers<\/em> with baritone St\u00e9phane Degout (2018), Libert\u00e0! <\/em>featuring little-known masterpieces by Mozart, Bach’s Motets<\/em> (2020) and St Matthew Passion<\/em> (2022), Mein Traum<\/em> (Schubert, Schumann, Weber\u20142022), Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Virgin<\/em> (2023), Mozart’s Requiem<\/em> (2024), Bach’s Mass in B minor<\/em> (2025), and Brahms’s A German Requiem<\/em> (2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rapha\u00ebl Pichon is an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a9 Fred Mortagne<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u2018An iconic figure of the new baroque generation, a gifted conductor, a model of elegance.\u2019 (Vanity Fair<\/em>, Hugo Wintrebert, 2024)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Rapha\u00ebl Pichon is on a quest to ensure that music plays its transformative part in a changing world.\u2019 (Gramophone<\/em>, Alexandra Coghlan, 2023)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Rapha\u00ebl Pichon makes the ancient sound urgently, utterly contemporary: This is the kind of thing that we listen to classical music for.\u2019 (The New York Times<\/em>, David Allen, 2025)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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‘Rapha\u00ebl Pichon, artistic director and researcher, loves team spirit and mixing genres. He is one of the great contemporary conductors, as much an intellectual as an artist, an airy, friendly, sober and passionate young man, a builder.’ (Lib\u00e9ration<\/em>, Virginie Bloch-Lain\u00e9, 2025)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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‘\u201cHe describes himself as a conductor-entrepreneur,\u201d the artistic and stage director Pierre Audi said in a phone interview. \u201cHe\u2019s somebody who is an initiator, a man of ideas.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s not just a pair of hands that conduct,\u201d Audi said, \u201cbut somebody who is thinking about programs, also about form, about theatricality, about presentation, how to make programs that are more dramaturgical. So that makes him quite unique.’ (The<\/em> New York Times<\/em>, David Allen, 2022)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Now it’s clear. Rapha\u00ebl Pichon is no longer just the rising star of the baroque scene, the most promising hope for orchestral and choral conducting in France. He is quite simply unmissable. Each of his projects is carefully thought out and crafted, with the intelligence of the programme design rivalling the perfection of the performance, both in concert and on disc.\u2019 (Le Figaro<\/em>, Christian Merlin, 2018)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\ud83c\udfa7 Listen to Rapha\u00ebl Pichon’s Les Grands Entretiens on France Musique, \u2018Rapha\u00ebl Pichon: sculpting sound\u2019, 5 episodes produced by Judith Chaine.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Pichon, in a short time has become one of the most interesting conductors\u00a0in classical music.\u2019 (New York Times) A leader of his generation, Rapha\u00ebl Pichon develops original and highly personal projects, while drawing on a rich tradition. A leader of his generation, Rapha\u00ebl Pichon develops original and highly personal projects, while drawing on a rich … rapha\u00ebl pichon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5634","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nrapha\u00ebl pichon - Pygmalion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ensemblepygmalion.com\/en\/raphael-pichon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"rapha\u00ebl pichon - Pygmalion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2018Pichon, in a short time has become one of the most interesting conductors\u00a0in classical music.\u2019 (New York Times) A leader of his generation, Rapha\u00ebl Pichon develops original and highly personal projects, while drawing on a rich tradition. 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