Geneviève Leclair
Henry St Clair
Rafi Gokay Wol
“Geneviève Leclair knowingly conducted the performance, realizing the subtle, as well as the dramatic tensions of Hannah’s emotions.”
Rutland Herald, 2020
Geneviève Leclair is an active guest conductor with organisations across Canada, the United States, and the UK in symphony, ballet, and opera. She is also an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, where she has been teaching conducting since 2016. Highlights of the 2024/25 season include debuts with Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Houston Ballet, and Regina Symphony Orchestra.
She was Principal Guest Conductor with Orchestre Classique de Montréal 2022/23, Assistant Conductor and Guest Conductor for Boston Ballet 2010/17, Music Director of Parkway Concert Orchestra 2013/19, and member of the Board of Directors of the International Conductors Guild 2017/20.
Geneviève’s performances have been hailed as “impeccable” (Boston Phoenix), “ravishing” and of “exemplary pacing and reading” (Hugh Fraser). Her conducting style is praised for its “verve and precision,” “confident dynamics and tempos, crisp rhythms, and crystalline phrasing creating powerful forward momentum” (Carla DeFord).
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A passionate advocate of collaborative and engaged arts, Geneviève premiered Saskatoon Symphony’s segment of The [uncertain] Four Seasons, a global initiative towards climate change action initiated in Australia ahead of the COP26 climate summit. She also curated a program on insect conservation for Wellesley Symphony in collaboration with the Sudbury Valley Trustees. With Orchestre Métropolitain, she premiered a triptych of pieces about acceptance based on a children’s book character with vitiligo, The Cloud Shoveler. In 2020, she conducted the Québec premiere of Laura Kaminsky’s opera As One — the story of a transgender character — with Orchestre Classique de Montréal in a live stream that has since been broadcast on OuTV to rave reviews. In addition to these projects, she maintains an extensive schedule as guest conductor with orchestras such as The National Ballet of Canada, Calgary Philharmonic, Spartanburg Philharmonic, Northern Ballet, Orchestre Symphonique de Sherbrooke, Jeunesses Musicales Canada, Symphony New Hampshire, Symphony New Brunswick.
Her extensive ballet repertoire of over 50 ballets includes most of the leading Romantic and 20th-century masterpieces, among which fifteen Balanchine ballets, Cranko’s Roméo et Juliette and Onegin, Kylian’s Symphony of Psalms, Lander’s Études, McGregor’s Chroma, Neumeier’s Nijinsky and Mahler’s Symphony No.3, Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty and Don Quixote, Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère and Swan Lake, Wright’s Giselle, Ashton’s Cinderella.
Geneviève was awarded the 2017 American Prize in Conducting, college/university division and took 2nd place in the professional orchestra division. In 2010, she was honoured to receive the Sir Ernest MacMillan Memorial Foundation Award in Orchestral Conducting. Geneviève holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting from Boston University under the tutelage of Maestro David Hoose. She had previously obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in flute performance at Université de Montréal, the latter under Mr Denis Bluteau, former associate principal flautist of Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.
www.genevieveleclair.com
“Our dancers always feel they have an ally and an artist guiding and supporting them when Geneviève is in the pit. This kind of connection between the orchestra and the stage allows great performances to happen: moments of trust and daring that are unique to live theatre”
“How wonderful for the dancers to be supported by music of such high calibre”
“Parkway Concert Orchestra is now in it’s 71st season. Since 2013 it has been under the baton of Geneviève Leclair who has rasied the orchestra to new heights”
