Éric Montalbetti composer / compositeur

As some of you already know, it has been in the beginning of the season for me the time to take a difficult decision, breaking my contract with Radio France.

 

After all these wonderful years, I would simply like to say here how glad I have been to work for the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, such an amazing group of generous and enthusiastic players, and with Music directors Marek Janowski, who was the first to invite me to work with him and who taught me so much, with Myung-Whun Chung whose trust and friendship are so dear to me, and who has developed the orchestra to such an amazing level, and Mikko Franck with whom I am so happy to have prepared the future seasons.

 

As I have to leave the company, I wish to thank all the great artists, conductors, soloists and composers, every player, every member in my team, for their friendship and for all what we have produced and lived together.

 

I would also like to thank all my partners in so many projects, especially Laurent Bayle, who has welcomed the orchestra in residence in Salle Pleyel since its reopening in 2006, and with whom we have developed so many wonderful projects at the Cité de la musique and for the Philharmonie, Dominique Meyer who hosted the orchestra in Théâtre des Champs Elysées during the renovation of Salle Pleyel, Jean-Pierre Brossmann and Jean-Luc Choplin at Théâtre du Châtelet for many lyrical and concert projects and for hosting our Présences Festival with Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2011, Olivier Mantei at the Opera Comique for our serie of classical concerts with Ton Koopman and great opera productions, as well as Jeanine Roze, Frank Madlener at Ircam and Nathalie Rappaport in Saint-Denis festival who coproduced several important projects with us too.

 

I am most thankful to the directors of so many wonderful concert halls all over the world who presented our concerts on tour, from the Wiener Musikverein and Berlin Philharmonie to the London Proms, New York Carnegie Hall, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., Tokyo Suntory Hall, NHK, Fuji Television, Japan Opera Foundation, Seoul Arts Center, Beijing NCPA, Shanghaï Oriental Arts Center as well as Shanghaï Grand theatre for our residency during the opening week of the World Expo, Moscow, Saint-Petersbourg, Abu Dhabi, South America, and so many others. I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Maestro Abreu and Gustavo Dudamel, for their wonderful and inspiring friendship, and for making possible our collaborations with El Sistema, especially the two amazing Berlioz productions in Paris with the joint forces of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

 

I would also like to give special thanks to Arte TV and ArteConcert (formerly ArteLiveWeb), France Télévisions and Medici.tv and our wonderful partner Jean-Stéphane Michaux at Camera Lucida for developing regular video broadcasts of our concerts, educational programs on television, documentaries and new Apps, as well as Deutsche Grammophon for all our recordings with Maestro Chung and with Esa-Pekka Salonen, Naïve for so many CDs and the collection of DVDs of "The keys to the orchestra" which we enjoyed so much developing with Jean-François Zygel, as well as EMI, Virgin Classics, Warner, Erato, Gallimard, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos and Aeon.

 

All these projects would not have been possible without the support of our main sponsor Amundi, as well as Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, Pierre Bergé, Samsung, Fujisankei, Toshiba, Ricoh, Infotel, Mitsubishi, Hilti, Wendel, ClearChannel, Faiveley and Laurent Périer.

 

I leave happy and proud of what we have achieved, and thankful for all what you and the orchestra have shared with me.