Audiences and critics are unanimous about Jean-François Rivest: he is a spectacular conductor endowed with tremendous energy, precision, emotion and exaltation who knows how to lead his orchestras efficiently towards artistic development. Great depths of feeling as well as a strong sense of structure characterize his interpretations. His discography of a dozen titles is quite varied and expands every year: Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Sibelius, contemporary works, etc. He was granted many awards and distinctions among which the famous Felix Awards from Adisq in Canada for the best Orchestral recording of the year. On top of his guest conducting all over Canada, he conducted in Europe, in Mexico, in South America and in Russia, in the famous ’Bolshoï’ concert ...

Audiences and critics are unanimous about Jean-François Rivest: he is a spectacular conductor endowed with tremendous energy, precision, emotion and exaltation who knows how to lead his orchestras efficiently towards artistic development. Great depths of feeling as well as a strong sense of structure characterize his interpretations. His discography of a dozen titles is quite varied and expands every year: Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Sibelius, contemporary works, etc. He was granted many awards and distinctions among which the famous Felix Awards from Adisq in Canada for the best Orchestral recording of the year. On top of his guest conducting all over Canada, he conducted in Europe, in Mexico, in South America and in Russia, in the famous ’Bolshoï’ concert hall. He is presently Artistic Director and conductor of the Orchestra of the University of Montréal, The Laval Symphony (nearby Montréal) and the Thirteen Strings chamber orchestra in Ottawa.Graduate of the Montréal conservatory (QC), Meadowmount (NY), Aspen (CO) and the Juilliard School of Music (New York, NY) with teachers such as S. Jelinkova, S. Thomas, I. Galamian and D. DeLay, Rivest started out as one of Québec’s foremost violinists of his generation. Winner of several prizes and distinctions, including the First Prize at the MSO Competition, 1976, already at the age of twenty he manages a very active orchestra, chamber music and solo career and has been in great demand for concerts in all major centers in Canada. As a teacher of considerable reputation, Rivest has taught at various music camps, at McGill University, at the conservatory of the province of Québec and has been responsible for the striking development of the string department at the University of Montréal where he has tenure since 1992. He is now ‘Professeur titulaire’ (highest rank in that university) and teaches conducting. He received in 1998 one of the rare ‘Excellence Awards’ for his teaching. He is also interested in composition.