Bruno Ferrandis

Bruno Ferrandis is now awarded the title of Conductor Laureate of the Santa Rosa Symphony after twelve seasons as their Music Director.
 
Bruno Ferrandis began his tenure as music director and conductor of the Santa Rosa Symphony (SRS) in July 2006. Born in Algiers and raised in Nice, France, Ferrandis is a French citizen. He has conducted all over the world, and his breadth of musical experience includes not only symphony and opera, but also ballet, musical theater and cinema-accompanying music.
 
A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he received a master’s degree in conducting from The Juilliard School with Sixten Ehrling and Jorge Mester. He was conductor of The Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and of The Juilliard Opera Center. He is both a pianist and a string bass player.
 
In 2012-2013, he was awarded an ASCAP AWARD “First place” for Adventurous Programming with SRS. He also co-founded the New Music ensemble “Music Mobile” in New York City, and has recorded three compact discs with the Radio France Orchestra.
 
He conducted the opera "The Garden" by Richard Ayres at the Ostrava Festival in August 2020. He will return there for the contemporary Festival in June 21, and is invited to conduct "Manon" in 2021-2022 at the Ostrava Opera.
 
In June of 2018, he conducted the rare Opera by Alois Haba, “Thy Kingdom will come,” and received an award for Best Czech Production of the Season in 2017-1018.
 
In September 2017, Ferrandis conducted four concerts for the Ostrava Days Festival and, in October 2017, Ferrandis conducted a Rigoletto production at the Opera de Tours.
 
He has conducted Offenbach’s "Orpheus in the Underworld" and Stravinsky’s "The Rake's Progress" at the San Francisco Conservatory. Other guest appearances include: Coburg Orchestra Germany, the Honolulu Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Marseille Opera Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony (North Carolina) and the Bogotá Symphony Orchestra in Bogotá, Colombia.
 
In 2013, Ferrandis conducted the new version of Martin Matalon’s composition to accompany the silent film of F. Lang’s “Metropolis” with the Atlanta Symphony; in 2014 he conducted a production of Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss at the Opera de Nice in France. In January 2015, he returned to the Opera de Nice to conduct a full opera production of Benjamin Britten’s "Peter Grimes."
 
He has extensive symphonic and ballet experience with orchestras in Europe, Asia and North America.
In 1997, he received a “Critic’s Grand Prize in France” for his conducting of "Wozzeck" by Manfred Gurlitt.  In North America, Ferrandis has conducted major opera works at the Canadian Opera Company (Toronto) and served as Music Director of the Banff Art Center (Alberta) from 1991 to 2000. He conducted numerous concerts with the Aspen Festival Orchestras until 1994.
 
Ferrandis has worked closely with the following living composers: in the U.S. with George Tsontakis, Edmund Campion, Augusta Read-Thomas, Mohamed Fairouz; in Canada with Randolph Peters and Harry Sommers; in France and Europe with Martin Matalon, Mauricio Kagel, Olga Neuwirth, Michal Rataj, Petr Bakla, Bernhard Lang and Klaus Lang.
 
He has also collaborated with a wide variety of entertainment artists such as the actors and movie directors John Neville, Atom Egoyan, Colm Feore, Robert Lepage, François Girard, Stephen Wadsworth and choreographer Martha Clarke.
 
Ferrandis speaks his native French, as well as English, Italian, Spanish, German Russian and Czech. He has also studied Ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew.

Photo by Colin Talcroft