Marc Minkowski & Florian Sempey

Marc Minkowski plays an active role in promoting classical music both though his exciting career as conductor, and as an artistic administrator.  Artistic director of Les Musiciens du Louvre that he founded in 1982, he created the Ré Majeure Festival on Île de Ré (French Atlantic coast) in 2011. General Manager of the Opéra National de Bordeaux from 2016 to 2021, Artistic Director of the Mozartwoche (Mozart Week) in Salzburg from 2013 to 2017, he has been the Artistic Advisor of Kanazawa Orchestra (Japan) from 2018 to 2022.

In 2018, he was honored as a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

After studying the bassoon, Marc Minkowski began conducting at an early age, then followed maestro Charles Bruck’s academy at the Pierre Monteux Memorial School, Hancock, Maine. At the age of nineteen, he founded Les Musiciens du Louvre, an ensemble that was to play an active role in the revival of Baroque music. Under his direction, Les Musiciens du Louvre explored both French Baroque music and Handel, before expanding their repertoire to include Mozart, Rossini, Offenbach, Bizet, and Wagner.

Marc Minkowski regularly appears in many of the world’s most highly-regarded opera houses and concert halls. In Paris, he has conducted Idomeneo, Platée, Die Zauberflöte, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Iphigénie en Tauride, Mireille and Alceste at the Opéra National; La Belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Carmen and Die Feen at the Théâtre du Châtelet; and La Dame blanche, Pelléas et Mélisande, Cendrillon, Die Fledermaus, Mârouf and Manon at the Opéra Comique.  At the Opéra National de Bordeaux, he has conducted Pelléas et Mélisande, La Vie Parisienne, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Manon, Carmen, Robert le Diable.

He has conducted several operas at the Salzburg Festival (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mitridate, Così fan tutte, Lucio Silla, Die Fledermaus), and at Aix-en-Provence festival (L’incoronazione di Poppea, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Don Giovanni, Les Boréades and Il turco in Italia).

His other international engagements have included: San Francisco (Don Giovanni), Brussels (Les Huguenots, Hamlet, and Il Trovatore at La Monnaie), Zurich, Geneva (Les Huguenots), Valencia (The Tales of Hoffmann), Venice, Moscow (first Pelléas et Mélisande ever on a russian stage at the Stanislavski Theatre, which won many awards), Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna (Hamlet, Fidelio, Le Nozze di figaro and Der Fliegende Holländer at the Theater an der Wien, Alcina and Gluck’s Armide at the Vienna State Opera). Since the 2014-2015 season, he has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Idomeneo, Traviata, Don Giovanni) and the Teatro alla Scala (Lucio Silla, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and l’Heure espagnole). He conducted Da Ponte Trilogy (director Ivan Alexandre) at the Drottningholm Festival, at the Royal Opera of Versailles Château, in Barcelona (Liceu) and Bordeaux National Opera.

With an active interest in collaborating with a diverse range of directors and choreographers, he has worked with François Abou-Salem, Chistopher Alden, David Alden, Ivan Alexandre, Philippe Béziat, Robert Carsen, Jérôme Deschamps, Richard Eyre, Jürgen Flimm, Joan Font, Achim Freyer, La Fura dels Baus, Jean-Claude Gallotta, Romain Gilbert, Klaus Michael Grüber, Claus Guth, Karl Ernst and Ursel Herrmann, Kasper Holten, Vincent Huguet, Nicholas Hytner, Nicolas Joel, Charles Jude, Waldemar Kamer, Natalia Korczakowska, Günter Krämer, Martin Kušej, Jorge Lavelli, Benjamin Lazar, Macha Makeïeff, Satoshi Miyagi, Sergio Morabito, Mark Morris, David McVicar, Jean-Pierre Miquel, Hans Neuenfels, Adrian Noble, Pascal Paul-Harang, Laurent Pelly, Jean-Louis Pichon, Pier Luigi Pizzi, David Pountney, Olivier Py, Marshall Pynkoski, Emilio Sagi, Karine Saporta, Laura Scozzi, Florent Siaud, Philippe Sireuil, Jacopo Spirei, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Jossi Wieler, Robert Wilson.

Marc Minkowski is also in high demand on the concert platform in standard and modern symphonic repertoire, conducting orchestras such as DSO Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, BBCSO, City of Birmingham SO, Kanazawa Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Mariinsky Orchestra, Spanish National Orchestra, SWR Stuttgart, Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, Kanazawa Ensemble, Tours Symphony Orchestra, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin and del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino orchestra. among others. His vast repertoire ranges from Rameau to Adams, and his recorded oeuvre includes all of the Schubert symphonies and Haydn’s London symphonies, Mozart’s 40th and 41st Symphonies, and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique to mention just a few highlights. A pioneer in combining equestrian art with classical music, he has also worked with Bartabas to create several shows.

In his 2022/23 season, his projects include La Juive in Grand Théâtre de Genève, followed by La Périchole at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, then Mitridate directed by Satoshi Miyagi in Berlin Staatsoper, Mozart Da Ponte trilogy at the Royal Opera of Versailles Château, then Manon at the Liceu in Barcelona. In concert, he conducts the Wiener Symphoniker and Wiener Philharmoniker, the Musikalische Akademie des Nationaltheater-Orchesters Mannheim, the Prague Philharmonia and the Saarländisches Staatsorchester. He will present Handel’s Alcina on tour (Europe) with Les Musiciens du Louvre as well.

Baritone Florian Sempey is one of the most sought-after lyric artists on the international scene.
His thunderous career has already led him to perform in the title role of Il Barbiere di Siviglia on stages around the world such as the Opéra de Paris, the Royal Opera House, the Opera di Roma, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées amongst many others. In concert, Florian has been heard alongside the Wiener Symphoniker, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Orchestre National de France, and frequents international stages with performances of ranging from Handel’s Apollo e Dafne to Mahler’s Lieder Eines fahrenden Gesellen.
The 21/22 season saw Florian perform at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo (Belcore – L’Elisir d’Amore) and at the Teatro Real as Dandini in La Cenerentola. Florian enjoys regular opportunities to perform in his native country, and during the previous season he performed on many stages around France including highlights such as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Guglielmo – Cosi fan tutte), the Opéra National de Bordeaux (The Count – Le Nozze di Figaro), and at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse (Figaro – Il Barbiere di Siviglia). He also performed in concert with the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Bordeaux, the Talens Lyriques, the Musiciens du Louvre, the Concert d’Astrée and the Chapelle Harmonique.
This season, Florian has upcoming performances as Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) with Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Les Siècles; Alphonse XI (La Favorite) at the Festival Donizetti and Opéra national de Bordeaux; as well as appearances at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Opéra National de Paris.
Florian studied piano and voice at the conservatoire in Libourne. He then proceeded to study singing at the Bordeaux Conservatory. In 2007, Florian joined the class of Maryse Castets at the Bordeaux Conservatoire. The following year he won the Opera First Prize and the Audience Award at the singing competition organised by the Bordeaux Opera’s Amis du Grand Théâtre. At the age of 21, He gave his debut performance at the Bordeaux Opera in the role of Papageno and has made regular guest appearances there since then. In 2010, he began a two-year spell at the Paris Opera’s Atelier Lyrique and in 2012, the baritone received the highly esteemed Prix Carpeaux. In 2013, Florian was nominated in the Revelation Opera Singer category at the Victoires de la Musique Classique.