Music Director

Fabien Gabel is Music Director of the Tonkunstler Orchestra, a position he officially took up at the Grafenegg Midsummer Night’s Gala in June 2025. His international career has taken him to top orchestras all over the world, including the London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Seoul Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. From 2012 to 2021 he was chief conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and from 2017 to 2021 of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes. In 2022 he made his debut at the Opéra National de Paris; he has conducted all the leading orchestras in France. In Paris he recorded the music for the silent film epic «Napoléon» by Abel Gance with the Orchestre National de France and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. In October 2025 he makes his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he conducts eight performances of Georges Bizet’s opera «Carmen».

He first came to international attention in 2004 as the winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London. This led to his appointment as assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2004 to 2006. Gabel was born into a family of Parisian musicians. He began playing the trumpet at the age of six and studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and later at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. In 2020 he was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

Season 25–26 © Tonkunstler Orchestra