Guillaume Bourgogne learned to play the saxophone in Lyon, his native city, before entering the Paris Conservatory. There, he won first prizes in musical analysis, harmony and orchestration. He was also first prize winner in orchestral conducting, with Janos Fürst as a teacher. Today, he is the music director of Ensemble Cairn (Paris) with the composer Jérôme Combier, and he is also the artistic director of Ensemble Op.Cit (Lyon). He is Associate Professor of conducting at the Schulich School at Music at McGill University and artistic director of the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble (Montreal) from 2013 to 2022. He is appointed Associate Professor at the Haute école de musique Vaud Valais Fribourg in Lausanne as of September 2022. From 2010 to 2018, he has been principal conductor of the Camerata Aberta (São Paulo, Brazil). He is regularly invited to lead orchestras including the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon), the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Bordeaux-Aquitaine Orchestra and the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to conducting the nineteenth and twentieth-century symphonic repertoire, he is a frequent guest conductor for contemporary music ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Court-Circuit (Paris), L’Itinéraire (Paris), 2e2m (Paris), Mosaik (Berlin), Ensemble TIMF (South-Korea), Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble (Lisbon), Soundstreams (Toronto), Israel Contemporary Players (Tel Aviv), Contrechamps (Geneva) and Linea (Strasbourg). Together with these orchestras and ensembles, he has performed in the foremost festivals: Musica (Strasbourg), Présences (Paris), Manifeste (Paris), Montreal New Music, Tage für neue Musik (Zürich), Märzmusik (Berlin), Radar (Mexico), Campos do Jordão (Brazil), Festival d’art lyrique (Aix-en-Provence), Tongyeong International Music Festival (Korea); Musica Viva (Lisbon), Ars Musica (Belgium), Darmstadt Ferienkurse (Germany), Borealis (Bergen, Norway), Archipel (Geneva), Fondation Royaumont, etc. Guillaume Bourgogne has premiered many pieces by composers such as Jérôme Combier, Tristan Murail, Gérard Pesson, Agata Zubel, Raphaël Cendo, Chris P. Harman, Luis Naon and Sergio Kafejian. His discography has been rewarded by various prizes: Diapason d’or, Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, Coup de cœur de l’Académie Charles Cros, Bravo! and Disque d’or.
