Drumroll for the Timpanist
By: Frank Cadenhead
Adrien Perruchon, 32, timpanist of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, has received a scholarship awarded by the “Dudamel Fellowship Program” created by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is one of three young leaders awarded the Dudamel Fellowship for 2015/16 and is expected to conduct a concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic early next year.
He made a significant splash in Paris last December when he was a last minute replacement on the podium of a regular concert of the “Phil” at Radio France. The French conductor Lionel Bringuier, a former “resident conductor” of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Dudamel and now music director of the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich, was originally programmed but bowed out sick. His place was taken by Mikko Franck, then the designated music director of the OPRF for the next season. Just before the concert, however, Franck got ill and the baton was thrust in Adrien Perruchon’s hand.
This was not entirely an act of desperation, however. Since 2009, Perruchon has studied conducting with Esa-Pekka Salonen, François-Xavier Roth and Alain Altinoglu and his conducting debut was warmly applauded by the audience, critics and his fellow musicians in the orchestra. Another young conductor on an upward path, it would seem.
Tags: Adrien Perruchon, Alain Altinoglu, Esa-Pekka Salonen, François-Xavier Roth, Gustavo Dudamel, Lionel Bringuier, Los Angeles Philharmonic, mikko franck, Orchestre National de Radio France