French conductor Mélisse Brunet, currently living in Iowa City, IA, is quickly gaining attention on both sides of that Atlantic as a “
skilled and polished conductor with panache” (ClevelandClassical.com). In July 2022, she became the fifth Music Director of the Lexington Philharmonic, KY, and the first woman to hold the position, she is also in her third season as the Music Director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, PA. In May 2021, she was named the first woman Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Iowa-School of Music where she is conducting the orchestras in symphonic concerts, operas, and musical theater, as well as teaching orchestral conducting to Master and Doctorate students. Under her guidance, two of her students have already won the Diversity Conducting Fellowship of the Buffalo Philharmonic, NY, and the position Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, WI.
A protégée of Pierre Boulez, Brunet was one of the 14 finalists selected over 200 applicants for the second edition of the International Competition La Maestra in 2022 in Paris. She was one of six conductors selected for the 2018 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, chosen for their “experience, talent, leadership potential, and commitment to a career in service to American orchestras.” In 2017 she was one of six conductors chosen for the international Hart Institute for Women Conductors at the Dallas Opera, selected out of 161 applicants from 33 countries.
As a dynamic advocate of contemporary music, Brunet has collaborated with composers such as T.J. Cole, Steven Stucky, Michael Daugherty, Shulamit Ran, James Barry, Mary D. Watkins, Loren Loiacono, and Jennifer Higdon, among others. In 2014, she was a selected conductor at the prestigious Cabrillo Festival for new music in California.
As an opera and music-theatre conductor, Brunet has conducted Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi at the Power Center in Ann Arbor; four staged performances of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte; and Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, and Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus in Boone, NC. In the Spring 2023, she will conduct Verdi’s La Traviata at the Coralville Center for Performing Arts, IA.
A native of Paris, Brunet began her studies on the cello, and also learned to play the trumpet, French horn and piano. She holds six diplomas from the Paris Conservatory (Analysis, Harmony, Counterpoint, Renaissance Counterpoint, Orchestration, and a Masters in Orchestral Conducting), a Bachelor in Music from the Université la Sorbonne, a Professional Studies diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Doctorate in conducting from the University of Michigan. Aside from Pierre Boulez, her mentors have included Kenneth Kiesler, Lawrence Loh, Carl Topilow, Zsolt Nagy, and Joel Smirnoff. Brunet also took part in international workshops where she studied with Marin Alsop, Gustav Meier, David Stern, Peter Eötvös, and Jorge Mester. She has studied French, English, German, and Italian lyric diction, and speaks English, French, Italian, Chinese, Hebrew, and German.
