Laurent Petitgirard

Laurent Petitgirard (born 10 June 1950, in Paris) is a French classical composer and conductor. Biography and career Laurent Petitgirard studied piano with Serge Petitgirard and composition with Alain Kremski. He has worked as conductor with dozens of orchestras, including the Paris Opera Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre National de France, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, National Orchestra of Spain, Moscow State Orchestra, China National Symphonic Orchestra and many others. In 1989 he founded the Orchestre Symphonique Français which he conducted until 1996, and also directed the Festival and the Academy of Flaine from 1986 to 1997. He has been the music director of the Orchestre Colonne, in Paris, since December 2004 and ended his contract two years before the end in April 2018 to concentrate on composition and guest conducting. He will still conduct the Colonne Orchestra, as a guest conductor, in the next seasons. Petitgirard has recorded dozens of CDs of music by a variety of composers, such as Honegger, Ravel, Dukas, Debussy, Saint-Saëns and others. As composer, Petitgirard has written scores for films by Otto Preminger, Jacques Demy, Francis Girod, Peter Kassovitz, Pierre Granier Deferre, and many others, with many of his film soundtracks being released on CD. He composed the theme and various incidental music for the television program Maigret.