"Since the appointment of French conductor Jean Thorel as its chief conductor, the CCOHK’s performances have been refreshing and have scaled new heights." - Ta Kung Pao 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 has conducted several chamber orchestras including the Danish Chamber Players, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Michel Strings (Finland), Musiques Nouvelles (Belgium) and Musica Vitae (Sweden). Other engagements include concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the Copenhagen Royal Ballet, the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the Stockholm Lans Symfoniker and the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra. 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 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. He was also the first French conductor invited to record CDs with the Russian National Orchestra. Jean Thorel studied orchestral conducting with Jean-Jacques Werner and Léon Barzin and ballet conducting with Antal Dorati and André Girard.