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    More about the
    CHIEF CONDUCTOR

    Frenchman Jean Thorel was appointed the chief conductor of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong in 2008. Since 1985 he has held the appointment of permanent conductor of the Stringendo Orchestral Ensemble in Paris. With the support of renowned French conductor Jean-Claude Casadesus, he was awarded the 1989 Vocation Foundation Prize for his outstanding work with this ensemble. Jean Thorel is increasingly in demand as a guest conductor throughout Scandinavia, Finland and Poland, his versatility enabling him to conduct a wide range of music from ballet to multi-faceted chamber and orchestral programmes. In Europe he conducts several chamber orchestras including the Saint Michel Strings (Finland), Musica Vitae (Sweden), Musiques Nouvelles (Belgium), and the Danish Chamber Players. An impassioned promoter of new and rare music, Jean Thorel is a regular conductor at prestigious festivals of contemporary music and has given over four hundred world premieres. He also has an extensive discography of over twenty CDs. Among them, his recording of works by Louis Saguer with the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble was joint winner of the 2002 Académie du Disque Lyrique "Orphée d'Or" together with Pierre Boulez's interpretation of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. Jean Thorel studied orchestral conducting with Jean-Jacques Werner and Léon Barzin and ballet conducting with Antal Dorati and André Girard.