Olivier Holt
Conductor
Born in Paris in 1960, Olivier Holt began playing piano and percussion before studying orchestral conducting with both European and American masters such as Jean Fournet, Franco Ferrara, Leonard Bernstein and Sir Charles Mackerras at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna.
Following his debut at Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet at age 21, he went on to conduct opera productions at the Opéra Comique, the Théâtre de Paris, the Opéra de Nancy, the Opéra de Lille, and the Opéra de Marseille, accompanying renowned soloists such as Natalie Dessay, Felicity Lott, Sophie Koch, Gabriel Bacquier, José Van Dam and Alain Fondary.
At the same time, he covered an ambitious symphonic repertoire, leading the musicians of the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre de Picardie, the Philharmonie de Lorraine, the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse, and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, among others.
His recordings include a CD for the Philips Classics label with Natalie Dessay, Françoise Pollet, Olivier Charlier and Nicolas Rivencq; Théodore Gouvy’s Cantate Egill and Stabat Mater with the Philharmonie de Lorraine for the K617 label; and the world premiere of the opera Maximilien Kolbe by Dominique Probst and Eugène Ionesco, which won the “Orphée d’Or” from France’s Académie Nationale du Disque Lyrique.
Olivier Holt is the Music Director of Le Symphonique, a professional faculty orchestra affiliated with the Paris’s Seine-Saint-Denis regional network of conservatories. He also conducts Orch’Est Ensemble, the network’s student orchestra, which presented Gluck’s Orpheo ed Euridice at the Philharmonie de Paris.
Recently, Olivier Holt has taken the podium as Guest Conductor for the Opéra de Toulon, the Opéra de Marseille, the Symphonique de Saint-Étienne, the Orchestre Régional de Cannes and the Orchestre de Picardie.
Internationally, Olivier Holt made his conducting debut in the United States with the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, in Italy with the Teatro Massimo Orchestra, and in Australia at the Melbourne Festival, in Denmark at the Tivoli Festival, and in Norway with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. In December 2017 he was invited to conduct an anniversary concert celebrating Leonard Bernstein with the Frauen-Kammerorchester von Österreich in Vienna.
Since 2016, Olivier Holt has been Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc, where he has worked with soloists Marc Coppey, Adam Laloum, Victor Julien-Laferrière, David Guerrier, Claire Désert and Régis Pasquier.
