Alphonse Cemin

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Alphonse Cemin is a conductor, pianist, and artistic director renowned for his diversity of taste and his strong affinity with vocal repertoire : opera, songs and folk music, specially sought after for Bel Canto and contemporary music. In the 2024/25 season, he conducts George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This at the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi with English Touring Opera in the UK, and leads a European tour featuring Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maître, with performances at the Elbphilharmonie and the BBC Proms.Recent highlights include conducting Bellini’s I Puritani with the Athens State Orchestra, Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra de Rouen, and Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride at the Opéra de Nancy. Internationally, he has directed Rameau’s Les Indes galantes and Tomás Bordalejo’s Bureau 470 at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, as well as George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill at the Théâtre de l’Athénée and the Opéra de Lille. He went to conducting through his long experience as vocal coach and musical assistant, working alongside luminaries such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano, George Benjamin, and Marc Minkowski, appearing at the Salzburger Festspiele, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Bavarian State Opera, and the Opéra Comique.A founding member of the acclaimed ensemble Le Balcon together with his friend and music companion Maxime Pascal, he also serves as musical director of the Lundis Musicaux at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris, curating performances with celebrated artists including Dame Felicity Lott, Christoph Prégardien, Sandrine Piau, Michael Spyres, Laurent Naouri, Konstantin Krimmel, Julius Drake, Malcom Martineau…

As a pianist, he frequently collaborates with distinguished singers such as Julie Fuchs, Marianne Crebassa, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Damien Pass, Nahuel di Pierro. Cemin’s early recognition included being named HSBC Laureate Pianist at the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy in 2010. He went on to win the Interpretation Prize at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten (2013) and the Gabriel Dussurget Prize at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (2017). His musical education began at the Conservatoires of Boulogne-Billancourt and Paris, later advancing at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musiquein Paris, where he specialized in piano accompaniment, chamber music, and vocal repertoire.