AYRTON DESIMPELAERE Chef d'orchestre/pianiste
AYRTON DESIMPELAERE Conductor/Pianist
Ayrton Desimpelaere (1990) is the Principal Conductor of the Slovenian National Opera and Ballet in Ljubljana since November 2022. In June 2015, in Moscow, Ayrton Desimpelaere gained recognition by stepping in at the last minute to conduct the Moscow Soloists of Yury Bashmet during the semi-finals of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. A few months later, the Royal Opera of Wallonia in Liège engaged him as an assistant conductor for four seasons.
Born in 1990, Ayrton Desimpelaere graduated in piano and orchestral conducting from the Regional National Conservatories of Paris and Versailles, as well as from the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and Mons. He also studied Art History and Musicology at the Sorbonne and ULB. Since 2017, he has been teaching orchestral conducting, choral singing, and vocal coaching at IMEP while regularly conducting the institute’s orchestras. For honoring Wallonia and contributing to its influence, the Walloon Government awarded Ayrton Desimpelaere the Medal of Walloon Merit on September 12, 2019.
His recent engagements include conducting the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana with cellist Natalie Clein, the orchestra and choir of the Teatro Verdi Trieste (Romeo and Juliet – Giselle – Don Kihot, symphonic concerts, Al Cavallino Bianco). In March 2025, he conducted the Tonkünstler-Orchester at the St. Pölten Festspielhaus (Austria). In April and May 2025, he is invited by the Rijeka Opera Ballet in Croatia to conduct Cinderella (Prokofiev/Leo Mujic). In December 2020, he was invited for four concerts with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara. After conducting Mozart's The Magic Flute (a participatory opera) at the Royal Opera of Wallonia, he created #Folon(Campogrande) in 2018, Don Quichotte (Massenet/Le Herissier) in 2019, Little Red Riding Hood (Guagnini) in 2020, Ursule and Hirsute (Polis/Borbé) in 2021, and The Last Sorcerer (Viardot) in 2022. In 2018, he conducted Cimarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto staged by Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera at the same opera house. The same year, he conducted two performances of Verdi's Aida and one performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. He also led the ORW orchestra in gala concerts for the International Lyric Art Competition in Namur in April 2019, and in April 2022, he conducted Sinfonia Eroïca, a ballet by Michèle-Anne de Mey created in 1990. Ayrton also conducted Don Giovanni at the PBA in Charleroi in a staging by Jaco van Dormael.
He has had the opportunity to meet and work with many notable personalities in the music world, including Speranza Scappucci, Paolo Arrivabeni, Daniel Oren, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Rinaldo Alessandrini, José Cura, Claire Servais, Sasha Mäkilä, Massimo Zanetti, Giampaolo Bisanti, Wolfgang Doerner, Guy van Waas, Tatiana Samouil, Jodie Devos, Eliane Reyes, Daniel Gazon, Michele Mariotti, Lionel Lhote, Luca Dall'Amico, Christophe Rousset, Mikhäil Faerman, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Patrick Davin, Vineta Sareika, Marianne Cornetti, Donata D'Annunzio Lombardo, Marcello Giordani, Yasko Sato, Dominick Chenes, Mario Cassi, Sabina Willeit, Arnold Rawls, and Jordi Bernacer.
His repertoire includes numerous operas, ballets, symphonic and choral works such as: La Bohème, Turandot, Nabucco, Don Giovanni, Orpheus in the Underworld, Jerusalem, Dido and Aeneas, Otello, Manon Lescaut, Norma, La Favorite, Rigoletto, Carmen, Le nozze di Figaro, La Donna del Lago, Macbeth, Il Trovatore, Tosca, Faust, Don Quixote, Aida, La Clemenza di Tito, I Puritani, Anna Bolena, Le Comte Ory, Madama Butterfly, Orpheus and Eurydice, La Cenerentola, Alzira, Don Carlos, La Sonnambula, Lakmé, Die Fledermaus, Don Quixote (ballet), Gisèle (ballet), The Nutcracker (ballet), The sleeping beauty (ballet), Romeo and Juliet (ballet) and more...
At BOZAR, he conducted the Belgian National Orchestra for the projects "Cantania" and "Move 2.0." and the choir of the Regional A Cœur Joie of Brussels in Dvořák's Stabat Mater. He frequently collaborates with the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia (with creations for the "Ars Musica" Festival: Machina Ex Uomo by Gwenaël Grisi and Doudou by Mathieu Lebrun). In December 2020, he was invited for four concerts with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara (Turkey).
Ayrton has been invited to several festivals: Festivals of Wallonia, Festival de l’Été Mosan, MuCH Festival at the Queen Elisabeth Chapel, Cavatine, Kidzic, Est-Ouest, Lyrics of Leers, Musical Walks of Rixensart, Ars Musica, Summer Festival in Hainaut, Mozart Festival, Classissimo, Midis-Minimes, Piccolo Opera Festival, Pula Summer Festival, Zagreb Opera Festival, and more.
Ayrton Desimpelaere is supported by the Wernaers Fund. In 2017, he received the Lekime Frison and Gerofi Baschwitz Prizes, and in 2018, the Maurice Lefranc Prize (Heritage Commission). He was appointed an expert to the Interdisciplinary Council of Performing Arts before joining the Council of Contemporary Music until 2019. In 2016, he joined the artistic committee of the André Dumortier International Competition. He participated with Cécile Lastchenko in the complete Debussy edition released by Warner in 2018 for the centenary of Debussy's death. He recorded Golijov's Three Songs alongside Jodie Devos and the Camerata IMEP. In 2019, he served on the jury of the International Lyric Art Competition in Namur.