Franck Ollu

Biography

Franck Ollu is a versatile conductor and widely acknowledged as an expert in the field of contemporary and French music. He has a long-established association with Ensemble Modern and is much in demand as an opera conductor. Plans for the 2016/17 season include concerts with Ensemble Modern including the Venice Biennale, Xenakis’s The Oresteia for his Basel Opera debut, George Benjamin’s Written on Skin for his Bolshoi Theatre debut, Rihm’s Jakob Lenz for his return to the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin and Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg for his return to the Opera National de Lille.

The 2015/16 season included a highly successful debut at the Opera du Rhin in Dusapin’s Penthesilea, the world premiere of which he conducted at La Monnaie in 2015. Other operas last season include Pelléas et Mélisande for his début at the Royal Swedish Opera.

2014/15 included Rihm’s Jakob Lenz for the Stuttgart Opera and La Monnaie and very successful debut concerts with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin.

2013/14 season saw many return visits to the Opera de Lille for Cunning Little Vixen, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin for a revival of his 2013 debut Le vin herbé by Frank Martin, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra with a Minimalist programme and Le Sacre de Printemps and L'après-midi d’un Faune at La Monnaie.

2012/13 saw several important débuts: Netherlands Opera and Theatre Capitole de Toulouse for performances of George Benjamin's highly-acclaimed new opera Written on Skin. Long associated with the music of Heiner Goebbels, he gave six performances of Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten with Ensemble Modern at the Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt. 2011/12 included a return to Festival Aix-en-Provence for the world premiere of Bianchi’s Thanks to My Eyes. In 2012 he made his debut at La Monnaie, Brussels, with this production and was immediately re-invited to perform his previous Aix-en-Provence premiere, Pascal Dusapin's Passion (2008).

He conducted the world premiere of George Benjamin's first opera Into the Little Hill at Opera de Bastille in 2006 with many subsequent performances with the London Sinfonietta at Aldeburgh Festival, The Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden, and with Ensemble Modern at Lincoln Centre and major festivals in Amsterdam, Vienna, Dresden and Frankfurt. He has given many performances of Rihm’s Jagden und Formen including the Salzburg Festival with Ensemble Modern. Other recent opera work includes The Rake’s Progress at Théâtre de l’Athénée, Paris, Xenakis’ The Oresteia and Dusapin's Medea at the Polish National Opera and several revivals of Dusapin’s Passion including Le Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris and the Opera de Lille. Franck Ollu conducted a new opera by Helmut Oehring Die Wunde Heine which he toured with Ensemble Modern to leading European festivals including the MusikTriennale Köln, and concerts with Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie at the Berlin Philharmonie.

Franck Ollu is a committed teacher and mentor and has ongoing relationships with London's Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music and Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie.