Laurence Equilbey

Laurence Equilbey is the conductor and musical director of accentus and the Insula orchestra, which she founded in 2012. This ensemble is devoted to the Classical and pre-Romantic repertoire playing on period instruments and is in residence at La Seine Musicale, a 1,150-seater auditorium on the Île Seguin close to Paris.
Her exploration of the symphonic repertoire has led to her conducting orchestras such as the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Concerto Köln, the Camerata and Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Laurence Equilbey recently conducted Haydn’s Die Schöpfung in a staging by La Fura dels Baus at the Grand Théâtre de Provence, as well as at La Seine Musicale, the Theater an der Wien, the Ludwigsburg Festival and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Britten’s Albert Herring at the Opéra de Rouen and the Opéra Comique, Marie-Agnès Gillot’s ballet Sous apparence at the Paris Opéra and Reynaldo Hahn’s Ciboulette and Gounod’s La Nonne sanglante at the Opéra Comique.
During the season 2018/19 she conducted the original fragments of Mozart’s Requiem with Yoann Bourgeois and Weber’s Der Freischütz with the 14:20 Company. She is an associate artist of the Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix-en-Provence and enjoys a close working relationship with the Philharmonie in Paris.
Under Laurence Equilbey’s artistic direction, accentus interprets a wide range of vocal repertoire, from a cappella works to stage productions, as well as making various critically acclaimed recordings. She is also artistic director and director of education at the Department for Young Singers at the Paris Conservatoire.
With Insula orchestra, Laurence Equilbey has recorded Mozart’s Requiem and the Krönungsmesse, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and orchestral transcriptions of Schubert Lieder. This season Laurence Equilbey and Insula orchestra made two Beethoven recordings for Warner Classics & Erato to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2020.
Laurence Equilbey studied music in Paris, Vienna and London, as well as conducting with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Eric Ericson, Denise Ham, Colin Metters and Jorma Panula.