Yan Pascal Tortelier enjoys a distinguished career as guest conductor of the world’s most prestigious orchestras. He began his musical career as a violinist, at fourteen winning first prize for violin at the Paris Conservatoire and shortly afterwards making his début as a soloist, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Following general musical studies with Nadia Boulanger, he studied conducting with Franco Ferrara, at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, in Siena. As its Chief Conductor from 2016 to 2020 he built a very special relationship with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and has also served as Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Ulster Orchestra (1989 – 92), Principal Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2005 – 08), and Principal Conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (2009 – 11). After an outstanding collaboration with the BBC Philharmonic as Chief Conductor between 1992 and 2003, during which period they made annual appearances at the BBC Proms and undertook a very successful tour of the US to celebrate the orchestra’s sixtieth anniversary season, he was named Conductor Emeritus; he continues to perform and record with the orchestra regularly.

Yan Pascal Tortelier has conducted major orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Milan, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Recently he appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington DC, and returned to the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. His long association with Chandos Records has resulted in an extensive catalogue of recordings, notably with the BBC Philharmonic and Ulster Orchestra, among them award-winning cycles of the orchestral music of Debussy, Ravel (including his own orchestration of the Piano Trio), Franck, Roussel, and Dutilleux. He has also recorded critically acclaimed discs of repertoire ranging from Hindemith and Kodály to Lutoslawski and Karlowicz. Most recently, with the pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Yan Pascal Tortelier has released recordings of Ravel’s Piano Concertos, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka and other works, with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. With the latter he has also recorded works by Florent Schmitt and, with the BBC Philharmonic and CBSO Chorus, Évocations and other works by Roussel.