Rémy BallotThe Paris-born violinist and conductor Rémy Ballot is “Conductor in Residence” at the Richard Strauss Festival. He was the last pupil of Sergiu Celibidache, whom he met at the age of 16. After the death of his teacher, Rémy Ballot founded his own orchestra in Paris, which he conducted for five years. He studied violin with Gérard Poulet at the Paris Conservatoire and received further musical inspiration from Ivry Gitlis.
Since 2011, Rémy Ballot has established himself internationally with his interpretations of Bruckner’s symphonies. Considered by some to be the best Bruckner conductor of his generation, his live recordings of all Bruckner symphonies as part of the Bruckner Festival St. Florian serve as reference recordings and have won numerous awards, including the Diapason d’or Découverte, four times the Supersonic Prize of the online magazine Pizzicato and several nominations for ICMA (International Classical Music Awards) and Grammy.
In his work with the orchestra “Klangkollektiv Wien”, which he founded together with the clarinettist and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra member Norbert Täubl, he is breaking new ground in exploring the repertoire of the First Viennese School. The inaugural concert with works by Haydn, Webern and Schubert was enthusiastically received by the Viennese and German press. This collaboration has also resulted in numerous CDs, which have met with a unanimous, in some cases hymnic, response from specialist critics. In the 2022/23 season, Ballot made his debut with Klangkollektiv Wien at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Prinzregententheater in Munich. He has been Conductor in Residence at the Richard Strauss Festival since 2024.
Rémy Ballot is also in demand internationally as an orchestra teacher. He works with orchestras in Spain, Albania, Croatia, Japan and Israel, where he was involved in founding the FYMO – Filasteen Young Musicians Orchestra – of the Barenboim-Said Foundation in Ramallah and with which he toured Palestine and Jordan. In 2019 and 2022 he conducted the National Orchestra of Cuba and the Lyceum Mozartiano de la Habana in Cuba in a series of concerts. He has also worked with the Orchestre National Philharmonique des Pays de la Loire, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Vienna State Opera Stage Orchestra, the Ossiach Academy Orchestra and the Salzburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
In parallel to his work as a conductor, he continues his activity as Primarius of the Ballot Quartet/Quintet. In 2020, his CD recording of Bruckner’s String Quartet and String Quintet was praised in extensive reviews in the magazines Diapason and Crescendo and on the ORF radio station Ö1 as new reference recordings. He also won the Supersonic Prize for this CD and was nominated for the ICMA.
