Biography
Jonathan Girard is known for his generous, sophisticated conducting and his boundless enthusiasm, on and off the podium. In the kaleidoscope of orchestral sound, he emphasizes structure, color, and nuance.
Girard is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Athens Philharmonic in Greece and has guest conducted around the world. This year marks his debut with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and additional engagements in Australia, Brazil, and the US.
He is based in Vancouver, BC and is the Director of Orchestras at the University of British Columbia and Artistic Director of the Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra. He appears often in the Pacific Northwest, with the Okanagan Symphony, Vancouver Island Symphony, and Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra. Previously, he held positions with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (NY), Portland Opera Repertory Theatre (ME), and the Ohio Light Opera.
Girard is passionate about designing innovative projects involving orchestral improvisation, visual arts, climate data, and groundbreaking technology. Notable projects include Slippages, a work combining ink drawings and data from the movement of glaciers, and Kamoi Komachi, a Noh opera by Farshid Samandari integrating Japanese and Western classical music instruments and styles.
He champions new and little-performed works, particularly by women and underrepresented composers, and has offered Canadian and North American premieres of works by Kaija Saariaho and Ana Sokolović, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Óscar Navarro, Florence Price, Arvo Pärt, Francis Poulenc, and others.
Girard’s work has been featured on TV on The National in Canada and broadcast on NPR (US), the CBC (Canada), and on four commercial recordings of works by Dorothy Chang, Stephen Chatman, Emmerich Kálmán, and others.
He believes in the power of orchestral music to create and share beauty that changes lives, and devotes significant time to advocating and working in music education. He has become internationally known for his conducting pedagogy and has now trained many successful emerging conductors with professional positions across the US and Canada. He has led youth orchestras across the continent and maintains a significant presence at festivals, clinics, and masterclasses across the Pacific Northwest. He led the Massachusetts All-State Orchestra during the pandemic years and served as conducting faculty at summer festivals including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestral Institute and the Marrowstone Music Festival.
Girard holds a DMA in orchestral conducting from the Eastman School of Music, an M.M. from Boston University, and a B.Mus. summa cum laude from the Hartt School of Music.
Off the podium, he enjoys traveling the world, and loves being a general aviation pilot. As in music, the detailed mechanics and discipline of flying lead to freedom, adventure, and poetry.