Pierre Vallet
September 19, 2019 | 2:30PM - 4:30PM
Kresge Theatre, College of Fine Arts
Praised for the elegance and intensity of his interpretations, French conductor Pierre Vallet is a frequent guest with the world’s great opera companies.
The New York Times selected his conducting of Persée et Andromède by Ibert at the Manhattan School of Music as one of the ten best classical performances in New York in 2016.
He has conducted Madama Butterfly and Faust at the Metropolitan Opera; Tannhäuser and Carmen at L’Opéra National de Paris; Carmen and Samson et Dalila at The Dallas Opera; Orfeo and Euridice (Glück) at Opera Theater St. Louis; Don Carlo at the Lithuanian National Opera Theater, Vilnius; La Juive at the Göteborg Opera, Sweden; Faust at the Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona.
Elsewhere he has conducted Eugene Onegin, Tannhäuser, and Otello at Tokyo Opera Nomori; L'Enfant et les Sortilèges at the Manhattan School of Music in New York; Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Hänsel and Gretel at the Saito Kinen Festival; Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle in Shanghai and Beijing; Madama Butterfly at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan; and Massenet’s Manon at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
Upcoming engagements include Tales of Hoffmann at the Bastille Opera.
Maestro Vallet's symphonic work includes regular appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London; the Camerata Royal in Bucharest; the Filarmonica Brasov in Romania, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra; the National Philharmonic of Chisinau, Moldova; the Spoleto Festival USA; the St. Hughes Concert Series in Miami and the Greenwich Village Orchestra in New York.
To celebrate Beethoven's year during the season 19-20, he will lead the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the complete piano concertos by Beethoven performed by Elizabeth Sombart and the last ten symphonies by Mozart, at Cadogan Hall, London.
He has recorded two CDs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Elizabeth Sombart: the Chopin piano concertos, and a collection of Favorite Adagios of piano concertos released in the spring of 2017. For Albany Records, he recorded the opera Cendrillon by Nicolò Isouard that he helped restore to its original 1810 version. In July he will record the complete piano concertos by Beethoven with Elizabeth Sombart and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Vallet is a long-serving member of the Metropolitan Opera, first as a pianist and coach and later joining the roster of staff conductors.
He has enjoyed a long-term musical partnership with Seiji Ozawa, working closely together on some fifty operatic productions and oratorios throughout Japan, the US and Europe, encompassing a large and diverse repertoire.
As chorus master, he has prepared the New York Choral Artists in Joan at the Stake by Honegger for the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert. He prepared the SKF Matsumoto Choir and the Ritsuyukai Choir for Britten’s War Requiem (Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall), the Tokyo Opera Singers for La Damnation de Faust, and Beethoven's 9th Symphony conducted by Seiji Ozawa at the Saito Kinen Festival. He has also appeared as conductor and lecturer at the choral festival Tokyo Cantat.
As a pianist, he has performed in duo recitals in both the US and Europe with some of the world’s most renowned singers, including Natalie Dessay, Maria Guleghina, Ying Huang, Denyce Graves (at the White House) and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. More recently he appeared at the Vienna State Opera with Roberto Alagna, and with Joyce di Donato in a live stream concert for the release of her new album Stella Di Napoli.
A committed educator, Pierre Vallet is a sought-after lecturer and guest teacher at the world’s premier training institutions. In addition to his work with the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, he has been a regular visitor to the Steans Music Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the Houston Grand Opera Studio and Opera Hong Kong.
Vallet studied conducting and the theory of phenomenology in music with Sergiù Celibidache, piano with Louis Hilbrand in Geneva and Peter Feuchtwanger in London. He is a graduate of L’Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.