Fabien Gabel Conductor

Born in Paris, Fabien Gabel began playing the trumpet at the age of six and honed his skills at the Paris Conservatory and at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. 

He played with various Parisian orchestras under prominent conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle and Bernard Haitink. In 2004, he won the Donatella Flick conducting competition, and then became assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2004 to 2006. 

He was music director of the Québec Symphony Orchestra from 2012 to 2021 and the Orchestre Français de Jeunes from 2017 to 2021. Fabien Gabel performs with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Paris Orchestra, the NDR-Elbphilharmonie Orchester, the Gürzenich Orchester in Cologne, the Oslo and Helsinki Philharmonics, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. 

He is known for his eclectic tastes, ranging from the core pieces of the symphonic repertoire to new music, and also champions lesser-known composers of the 19^th and the 20^th centuries. 

The 2022-23 season includes a series of debuts with the Wiener Symphoniker, the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and with the symphony orchestras of Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Baltimore and Chicago. It also includes return appearances with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Malmö Symphony, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. 

In Paris, he embarks upon a large-scale project to record the music for Abel Gance’s 1927 silent movie Napoléon with the Orchestre National de France and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, in a production which will appear in cinemas, for online streaming and in live performances. 

In January 2020, he was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.