The Asian Youth Orchestra warmly welcomes back as principal conductor one of the most exciting talents of the younger generation, French-Swiss conductor Joseph Bastian.

 

Maestro Bastian is widely celebrated for his “total precision, and calm and masterful manner”, and renowned for the remarkable and tangible sense of partnership he creates with orchestral musicians.

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Following several successful concerts with the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne, he has been unanimously elected Principal Conductor of the orchestra, starting with the 2022/2023 season. Maestro Bastian is also the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Designate of the Munich Symphony Orchestra, beginning the role in 2023/2024 season.

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As a guest conductor, Bastian enjoys a particularly strong profile in Germany, with recent and forthcoming highlights including projects with the Bamberger Symphoniker, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Dresdner Philharmonie, DRP Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern, and the Düsseldorfe Symphoniker, as well as with the radio orchestras of Berlin (DSO & RSB), Frankfurt (hr-Sinfonieorchester), Köln (WDR), Munich (BRSO), and Stuttgart (SWR).
 

Bastian conducts at a high level in France, working regularly with such orchestras as the Orchestre National d’Île de France, and the Orchestre National du Capitôle de Toulouse. Other recent and forthcoming highlights include projects in Austria (Mozarteumorchester Salzburg), the Baltics (Estonian National Symphony Orchestra), Benelux (Belgian National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg), Central Europe (Prague Radio Symphony

Orchesta), Japan (Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra Tokyo), Scandinavia (Aarhus Symfoniorkester, Gävle Symfoniorkester), Spain (Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya), South America (Orquestra Sinfònica do Estado de São Paulo), and Switzerland (Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne).
 

Maestro Bastian holds a particular gift for opera, and in 2022 made his debut at the Zürich Opera, conducting Haydn's Il mondo della luna at the Theater Winterthur, Switzerland, to widespread critical acclaim. In 2021, he led a highly successful run of Die Bernauerin at the Carl-Orff Festival, Germany, and has also enjoyed work with the Kammeroper München. He is always keen to further his knowledge and skills in the art of conducting, and to that end he recently worked closely with Vladimir Jurowski at the Bayerisches Staatsoper on their production of Penderecki’s Die Teufel von Loudun.

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Born in France to a French-Swiss family, Bastian began his musical journey by studying the cello, trombone, and composition. After studies in trombone at the University of Music Saar, he performed as a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado and Pierre Boulez, and the Orchestra Academy of the Munich Philharmonic. Thereafter, he held for a time the position of Principal Bass Trombonist with the BRSO, before putting the instrument aside in order to focus fully on his rapidly progressing conducting career.

 

Bastian worked alongside with the late Mariss Jansons, who helped and supported him significantly in his early conducting studies, as well as with Daniel Harding, and Vladimir Jurowski (London Philharmonic Orchestra). He also received masterclasses and ongoing support from Bernard Haitink, Jorma Panula, and David Zinman, amongst others.