French conductor Alexandre Bloch attracted international attention winning first prize at the 2012 Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and has since maintained a close relationship with the London Symphony Orchestra. Admired for his musicality, enthusiasm and energy, he made his acclaimed Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra debut, replacing Mariss Jansons on short notice, not too long after.
Recent guest engagements include Philharmonia Orchestra in May 2024 (stepping in for Santtu Matias Rouvali), Rotterdam Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, the Hallé Manchester, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, a tour with the European Union Youth Orchestra, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, George Enescu Philharmonic Bucharest, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Australian Youth Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Oslo Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestre National de France, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Utah Symphony, NCPA (Beijing) and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Equally at home in opera, Bloch has appeared with the Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich), where he returns for two productions in 2024/25, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Düsseldorf), Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra de Lille, and Opéra de Lyon.
Bloch was Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lille from 2016 to 2024, a tenure that inspired artistic and community growth. He programmed and explored a diverse, thrilling range of repertoire – a full Mahler cycle, most of the Stravinsky ballets, the large-scale French and German symphonies, as well as the intimate chamber forced canon of the classical masters Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. An advocate of new music, Bloch invited today’s most exciting composers, such as Magnus Lindberg, George Benjamin and Thierry Escaich, to be the Artists-in-Residence or featured in festivals. An innovator on and off the podium, he initiated special projects attracting new audiences into the concert hall with lyrical programs Bernstein’s Mass, "Carmen", "Tosca", "Les Pêcheurs de Perles", "La Belle Hélène", "La Bohème", young audience concerts, and 2.0 concert formats. Under Bloch’s direction, the Orchestre National de Lille was nominated for a 2020 Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award and has been featured extensively on different labels and broadcast channels such as Alpha Classics/Outhere, Pentatone, Mezzo TV, France Musique Radio.
He has collaborated with many internationally established soloists such as Frank-Peter Zimmermann, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Mischa Maisky, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Sol Gabetta, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Steven Isserlis, Sharon Kam, Alice Sara Ott, Nemanja Radulović, Veronika Eberle, Veronique Gens, and Xavier de Maistre.
Former Principal Guest Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Bloch was an ADAMI emerging talent and a Tanglewood Conducting Fellow, drawing the attention of mentors such as Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Sir Mark Elder and Esa-Pekka Salonen.