Dirigent
Biography:
Franck Ollu (born in La Rochelle, France; music studies in Paris) is an extremely versatile conductor and is respected as an expert in contemporary music and the French repertoire. He has worked closely with Ensemble Modern for many years.
He is also in great demand as an opera conductor; Opera productions under his direction include Wolfgang Rihms Jacob Lenz (Co-production of the Stuttgart Opera with La Monnaie) and Luca Francesconis Quartet (Ollu's debut at Malmö Opera). There are also concert performances by Debussys Pelleas and Mélisande in Perm, Russia. In the concert field, he appears with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the DSO Berlin and the Ensemble Modern at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and at the Paris Cité de la Musique. In the 2013/14 season, Ollu made guest appearances with the Janáčeks again The cunning little fox at the Opéra de Lille. After his debut there in 2013, he returned to the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin for a revival of Frank Martins Le Vin Herbe return. He interpreted a minimalist program with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra; at the opera La Monnaie he conducted Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Debussys L'Apres midi d'un faune.
Future seasons include performances by George Benjamins Written on Skin (Opera de São Paulo, Brazil) and Pascal Dusapins Penthesilea (Opera du Rhin, Strasbourg). In 2012/13 he celebrated with performances of George Benjamin's opera Written on Skin important debuts at the Nederlandse Opera and the Théâtre Capitole de Toulouse. As a long-time connoisseur of the music of Heiner Goebbels, he conducted his opera Landscape with Distant Relatives six times with the Ensemble Modern at the Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt. In the 2011/12 season he was responsible for the world premiere of the opera Thanks to My Eyes invited again to the Aix-en-Provence Festival by Oscar Bianchi. With the same production, he made his debut at the Opera La Monnaie in Brussels in 2012, which he then performed with Pascal Dusapins PASSION invited.
In 2006 Ollu conducted the premiere of George Benjamin's first opera Into the Little Hill at the Paris Opéra Bastille; This was followed by numerous performances with the London Sinfonietta at the Aldeburgh Festival, the Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden and with the Ensemble Modern at New York's Lincoln Center as well as at major festivals in Amsterdam, Vienna, Dresden and Frankfurt. Together with the Ensemble Modern he conducted Wolfgang Rihms several times hunts and forms on, among others at the Salzburg Festival.
Other opera productions were Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (Théâtre de l'Athénée, Paris), Xenakis' Oresteia and Dusapins medea material (Polish National Opera, Warsaw) and Dusapin's Passion (among others at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris and at the Opéra de Lille). Franck Ollu conducted the premiere of Helmut Oehring's opera Heine's wound, with which he traveled to several European festivals together with the Ensemble Modern, including the MusikTriennale Köln. With the German Chamber Philharmonic he gave concerts in the Berlin Philharmonic.
Franck Ollu is a dedicated teacher and mentor and has ongoing relationships with London's Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music and the International Ensemble Modern Academy.
Albums:
