musical director

Jean-Philippe Sarcos completed his musical studies at the Conservatoire de Paris in the class of Jacques Castérède, and has a ‘’Licence de Concert’’ (Degree in Performance) from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. Early on, he decided to focus on conducting, while also studying voice, composition and the piano. This led him to work with renowned conductors, such as Georges Prêtre, Pierre Dervaux, Jean-Sébastien Béreau, Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden, Gérard Devos and Dominique Rouits. Drawn to romantic music, he also took great interest in the baroque. He worked for three years with William Christie at the Conservatoire de Paris, and conducted various ensembles which perform on period instruments.

He is the founder and musical director of the Palais Royal, with which he performs baroque, classical and romantic music on period instruments. He conducted the Palais Royal in a number of festivals where his performances were much appreciated, such as the Lourdes Festival of Sacred Music and the festivals of Sylvanès, Auvers-sur-Oise, Saint-Malo, St. Victor’s Abbey in Marseilles, etc. On these occasions he conducted mainly French repertoire.

He performed for the third year in a row at the festival of Calenzana in Corsica, in an all-Mozart programme with soprano Claire Debono.

Apart from his work with Le Palais Royal, he has been invited by various orchestras such as the National Chamber Orchestra of Toulouse, the National Warsaw Academy Orchestra, and Mark Minkowski’s Les Musiciens du Louvre, and takes part enthusiastically in a number of projects aiming at introducing the younger generations to classical music. For example he founded the Académie de Musique, an ensemble of more than 350 young musicians and choir singers.

He performs regularly in the main Paris auditoriums : the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Pleyel, Théâtre Mogador, and likes to perform rarely played pieces such as Le Déluge, La Terre Promise or the symphonies by Saint-Saëns. He notably gave the first French performance of the Coronation Ode by Elgar.

To celebrate its 20th edition, the Dax festival of sacred art invited him for the fourth time, thus distinguishing him as one of the most influential artists in its history.

Jean-Philippe Sarcos was awarded five ‘’diapasons’’ for his recording of the Mozart Requiem with Le Palais Royal and was also the first to record French post-romantic composer Mel Bonis’ sacred pieces. He recorded a film version of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana directed by François Goetgheber. The film was broadcast on France 3, the BBC and many other networks around the world. Mezzo commissioned a documentary on his work, entitled « Jean-Philippe Sarcos, conductor ».

• To download his biography