Gilles Auger
Starting with the 26th season I Medici di McGill Orchestra is under the musical leadership of Maestro Gilles Auger.
Born
in Quebec City, Gilles Auger is a graduate in clarinet, chamber music
and conducting of Quebec’s Conservatory of music. He has been awarded a
Master of Music Degree from the Juilliard School of Music (New-York)
with the help of grants from the Canada Council and the New-York’s
Bruno Walter Scholarship. His principal teachers were James DePreist,
Mario Bernardi, Sixten Ehrling, Jorge Mester and Leonard Bernstein. He
has been resident conductor with l’orchestre des jeunes du Québec, in
Montreal (1984-86) and recorded with them for the CBC. He served as
music director of La Sinfonietta de Radio-Canada from 1984 until 1990
and founded and conducted l’Orchestre symphonique des Jeunes de Lévis
(1985-91). Since 1986, Gilles Auger is conductor of the Quebec’
Conservatory orchestra and also conducted and taught at Laval
University (84-96). He founded and led the Orchestre de chambre
Gilles-Auger with which he gave, in 1993, an impressive Beethoven
symphonies cycle, in three concerts. He also has been music director of
the Sherbrooke symphony and the Orchestre de chambre de L’Estrie
(96-98).
In September 1986, he won a unanimous First Prize at the Besançon’s
international competition for conductors (France). The following year,
the Canada Council awarded him with the Virginia P. Moore Award, and in
1990, the London University (Ontario) gave him the Clifford Evens
Memorial Conducting Award.
Gilles Auger conducted many professional
orchestras, here and abroad: l’Orchestre National de Lyon and
l’Orchestre national de France (Paris), l’Orchestre de la Suisse
Romande (Switzerland), the Montreal Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the
Quebec Symphony, the National Arts Center Orchestra l’Orchestre
métropolitain (Montreal), Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the
Kitchener-Waterloo orchestra, the Manitoba chamber orchestra, the
Saskatoon Symphony, the Saint-Louis Ballet orchestra (Missouri) and, of
course all the Juilliard orchestras (the Symphony, the Philharmonia,
the Juilliard Orchestra). He also “revived” the Juilliard chamber
orchestra and worked also with Les Violons du Roy. He is currently
conductor/teacher at the Quebec’s Conservatory (since 1986) and music
director of the Lévis Symphony orchestra (since 2000).
As a
composer, Gilles Auger wrote many song cycles for soprano, mezzo and
baritone, some chamber music and two symphonies, the second being a
symphonie concertante for timpani solo and orchestra. He is also an
active orchestrator, and is presently working on an opera based upon Le
Roi se meurt by Eugène Ionesco.Season 2020/2021 - on Sabbatical Leave |
