Jacques Lacombe

Jacques Lacombe has also served mostly recently as Music and Artistic Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Mulhouse in France, and prior to that Principal Conductor of the Bonn Opera, Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières and of the Orchestre de Lorraine in Metz, France. From 2010 to 2016 he was Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and from 2002 to 2006, principal guest conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. Renowned as a “gifted and ambitious” conductor (The New York Times), his artistic integrity and rapport with musicians and orchestras have propelled him to international stature.

He opens his busy 2022/2023 season with back-to-back opera productions: first with Il Trovatore at L’Opera de Montreal in September, and this week making his debut leading the Canadian Opera Company in Carmen.  In November, Lacombe conducts the finals of the Montreal Symphony Competition before heading to Vancouver to conduct Tosca in concert with Sondra Radvanovsky for the inaugural performance of The Opera West Society.  He then conducts Hansel and Gretel for the University of British Columbia Opera.  In the winter/spring he returns to the Vancouver Opera for Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then debuts at the Greek National Opera for Werther with Anita Rachvelishvili.  He rounds out the season returning to his hometown Orchestre Symphonique de Trois-Rivières for Beethoven Symphony No. 9, and then leads Orchestre Symphonique de Laval.

In recent seasons, Lacombe has conducted the Dallas and Boston Symphonies, leading the Boston Symphony twice for opening nights at Tanglewood, as well as the Orchestre National de France.

Lacombe’s opera work includes all-star productions at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and The Metropolitan Opera, the world premiere of Marius et Fanny with the Opéra de Marseille, and productions including Ariadne auf Naxos, Der fliegende Holländer and Eugene Onegin with the Deutsche Opera Berlin. He has led productions with Opéra de Monte-Carlo, most recently La Favorite by Donizetti with tenor Juan Diego Florez. Recently he conducted the Bonn Opera in new productions of Holofernes by Reznicek, La Bohème, Lucia di Lammermoor and Peter Grimes with, in the title role, José Cura who also staged this new production.

In addition to releases for for the CPO and Analekta labels, Lacombe recorded Janáček’s Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and the Verdi Requiem on releases with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.  In 2012 He received a Juno Award for his recording of Lettres de Madam Roy á sa fille Gabrielle  featuring Marie-Nicole Lemieux.

As orchestral conducting teacher at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.  He is a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec and a Member of the Order of Canada, one of the highest civilian honors in the country.