AYRTON DESIMPELAERE Conductor/Pianist
AYRTON DESIMPELAERE Conductor/Pianist
Ayrton Desimpelaere (b. 1990) has been Principal Conductor of the National Opera and Ballet of Slovenia in Ljubljana since November 2022.
A Belgian conductor known for his versatility, he has developed an international career spanning opera, ballet, and symphonic repertoire.
He first came to attention in June 2015 in Moscow, when he stepped in at short notice to conduct the Moscow Soloists under Yuri Bashmet during the semi-final of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. A few months later, he joined the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, where he was engaged for four seasons as assistant conductor, while also being entrusted with numerous productions as principal conductor.
At the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, he conducted Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto in a production staged by Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera, as well as several performances of Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. He also led numerous productions for young audiences and contemporary creations, including #Folon (Campogrande), Don Quixote (Massenet/Le Hérissier), Little Red Riding Hood (Guagnini), Ursule and Hirsute (Polis/Borbé), and The Last Sorcerer (Viardot).
Since then, he has been regularly invited by major European institutions. Recent engagements include collaborations with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana alongside cellist Natalie Clein, the Teatro Verdi di Trieste, where he conducts opera, ballet, and symphonic concerts, the Tonkünstler-Orchester at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Belgium, and the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra. In 2025, he is invited by the Rijeka Opera Ballet to conduct Prokofiev’s Cinderella in a choreography by Léo Mujic.
In April 2022, he conducted Sinfonia Eroïca, a ballet by Michèle-Anne de Mey originally created in 1990 (Astragales with ORW and Tönkunstler-Orchester). He also led Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (PBA) in Charleroi in a production staged by Jaco van Dormael.
His repertoire includes more than forty operas and ballets, as well as a wide symphonic and choral repertoire ranging from the Baroque period to the present day.
He is also a guest conductor at numerous festivals, including the Festivals de Wallonie, the Festival de l’Été Mosan, the Ars Musica Festival, the Pula Summer Festival, the Zagreb Opera Festival, the Mozart Festival, the MuCH Festival at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, as well as the Midis-Minimes and Classissimo Festival.
He holds master’s degrees in piano and orchestral conducting from the conservatories of Paris, Versailles, Brussels, and Mons. He also holds degrees in art history and musicology from the Sorbonne and ULB. Since 2017, he has been teaching orchestral conducting, choral singing, and vocal coaching at IMEP (Belgium).
In recognition of his contribution to the cultural influence of Wallonia, he was awarded the Walloon Merit Medal in 2019 by the Government of Wallonia. He is also a laureate of the Lekime Frison Prize, the Gerofi Baschwitz Prize, and the Maurice Lefranc Prize (Commission du Patrimoine).
He has had the opportunity to work with leading figures in the music world, including Speranza Scappucci, Paolo Arrivabeni, Daniel Oren, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Frank Van Laecke, Aleksandra Naumovski Potisk, Renato Zanella, Natalie Clein, Marguerite Donlon, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Krešimir Dolenčić, José Cura, Christophe Rousset, Michele Mariotti, Massimo Zanetti, Giampaolo Bisanti, Lionel Lhote, Jodie Devos, Eliane Reyes, Tatiana Samouil, Vineta Sareika, Marianne Cornetti...
His discography includes recordings for Warner Classics (Debussy project), as well as collaborations with Jodie Devos and the IMEP Camerata.