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The Bouches-du-Rhône Mastery team

SAMUEL COQUARD
MUSIC AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

After studying piano and singing with Paul Rodier at Notre-Dame College, Samuel Coquard turned to the organ in the class of Luc Antonini at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Montpellier and followed university studies in musicology at the same time. In December 1999, at the age of twenty-three, he was appointed choir director of the Maîtrise de la Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, the youngest conductor to be appointed to this position alongside Nicole Corti. In September 2002, Samuel Coquard became Musical and Artistic Director, educational manager of the Bouches-du-Rhône Masters, where he directs the children's choirs, the young choir and the Asmara chamber choir which he founded in 2004.  

The Master then develops and becomes under his impulse a recognized and specialized structure to which he will give the name of Pole of vocal art. At the head of the Master's, Samuel Coquard collaborates with the operas of Marseille and Avignon, Festival of Lyric Art of Aix en Provence, the Chorégies of Orange, the Easter Festival. He is also invited to major national and international stages such as the Chorégies d'Orange, where in July 2012 he conducted Rossini's “Petite Messe solennelle”. He regularly participates in the Music Festivals of La Chaise Dieu, Conques, Roquevaire and Vendée. He also directed the opening of the Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix en Provence in 2008 and in June 2017.

He will conduct an a cappella and Bach concert at the Abbaye de Silvacane as a prelude to the Festival d'Art Lyrique pour Aix in June. For Marseille-Concerts at the Théâtre du Gymnase, Samuel Coquard conducted the New Year's concerts, in 2011 with Johann Strauss' "Valses de Vienne" and in 2012 with Rossini's "Petite Messe Solennelle", which he will resume in 2018 at the Musicales du Lubéron festival in the Taillades quarries.

The Director of the Opéra de Marseille will entrust him with the creation of the contemporary opera “Douce et Barbe Bleue” by Isabelle Aboulker, directed by Nadine Duffaut, which he will conduct at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in December 2015.

Under the Solstice label, he recorded with the Maîtrise, a first disc devoted to the sacred vocal work of Jean Langlais, then in 2009, a new disc devoted this time to works for choir and piano by Dvorak, Rachmaninov and Rheinberger. . In 2011, under the label Parsiphonie released a new disc where he conducts this time the Young Choir and Nina Uhari on the piano in the Lieder und Gesänge by Malher and the Duetti für Chor by Mendelssohn. 2013, Samuel Coquard records with  the Maîtrise a new disc in honor of Benjamin Britten's 100th birthday, bringing together works for choir and harp by Kodaly, Holst and John Thomas with Elodie Adler on harp. The wealth of artistic expression of the vocal art center has therefore enabled him to deepen the German and Italian baroque repertoire, Slavic and French romanticism, but Samuel Coquard is also interested in works unknown to the general public as well as in music. contemporary works by Iannis Xénakis, Régis Campo, Carol Robinson, Jean-Pierre Leguay, François Rossé and Edith Canat de Chizy, Florent Gauthier, Zad Moultaka and Christian Roque, from whom he commissioned works. 

Samuel Coquard

His majestic, precise and powerful direction, his teaching both sober and demanding, rigorous, terribly effective but coupled with rare human qualities have been recognized and rewarded. 
The disc dedicated to Jean Langlais obtained the most beautiful awards of the disc: 5 Diapasons and 4 stars in Le Monde de la Musique. Samuel Coquard received the Pierre Barbizet Music Prize on December 12, 2008, from the Academy of Arts, Sciences and Letters of Marseille.  

In 2019, and in parallel with his directing activities within the Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône, Samuel Coquard was appointed Guest Choir Master at the Peking Opera NCPA. He was entrusted with the direction of the choirs for two productions of French operas, Les Pêcheurs de Perles by Georges Bizet and Les Contes d'Hoffman by Jacques Offenbach, and assisted Pinchas Steinberg and Donato Renzetti in the direction of the orchestra. In 2020, he turned to conducting contemporary works and commissioned three composers: Marc Henric, Bernat Vivancos and Michaël Levinas.

 

France 3 and Mars production will dedicate a documentary to him retracing the commitment of his work with the children of the Maîtrise and will retrace his career turned towards transmission which is at the center of his life and his career as a musician and conductor.

Recrutement Maîtrise des Bouches du Rhône

RECRUITMENT

Saison 2022, Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône

SEASON 2022

LA MAÎTRISE, PÔLE D'ART VOCAL

THE MASTERY, CENTER OF VOCAL ARTS

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