Chloé Dufresne

Chloé Dufresne has already made her mark as a conductor with her clear technique, calm authority and wide palette, winning prestigious prizes and engagements only three years after graduating from the Sibelius Academy. In 2021 she won both audience and orchestra prizes at the Besançon Conducting Competition, as well as being finalist at the Malko Competition. She was a Conducting Fellow at the 2022 Lucerne Festival and a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 22-23 season, and Gustavo Dudamel subsequently invited her to the Opéra de Paris Académie for 23-24. From 23/24 she also serves as Artistic Director of Orchestre Ostinato, a Paris-based orchestra for musicians at the start of their careers.

Dufresne conducts orchestras across the Nordic region, including Helsinki Philharmonic and Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and her native France, working with Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre de l’Opéra de Montpellier, and Orchestre national Montpellier Occitanie, which she conducted last season as part of Musiques en fête, broadcast on French television.

As well as conducting core repertoire, Dufresne is committed to new music and won a prize for her interpretation of music by Camille Pepin at the Besançon competition. Her vocal and choral conducting background leads her naturally to opera and she has conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Bellini’s Norma, Britten’s Albert Herring and Offenbach’s Pomme d’Api for Opéra Rouen, Opéra de Toulon, Opéra Nice, and Opéra National de Lorraine, as well as a Bayreuth production of Wagner’s The Ring for children at the Helsinki Festival. Last season she conducted a new production of Donizetti’s Elisir d’amore for Angers Nantes Opéra, Gounod’s Faust for Opéra de Vichy, and Offenbach’s Le Voyage dans la Lune at opera houses in Massy, Metz, Reims, and Rouen.

Highlights of Dufresne’s 23-24 season include her Japanese debut with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra conducting Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, concerts with the Finnish Radio Symphony, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie, Basel Sinfonietta, and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, and return visits to Orchestre National de Bretagne and l’Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier.

Dufresne studied viola, singing and choral conducting before completing her Masters in conducting from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 2020, where her teachers included Atso Almila, Sakari Oramo, and Alain Altinoglu. She attended masterclasses with Mikko Franck, Paavo Järvi, Hannu Lintu, David Zinman, Thomas Adès, and Susanna Mälkki, and has assisted Sakari Oramo, Gustavo Dudamel, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.