Raphaël Pichon began his musical apprenticeship on violin, piano, and voice, training at various Paris conservatories. As a young professional singer, he performed under the baton of leading figures such as Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, and Ton Koopman, as well as with Les Cris de Paris.

In 2006, he founded Pygmalion, a choir and orchestra that performs on period instruments. J. S. Bach’s Missae breves, late versions of Rameau’s great lyric tragedies, and Mozart rarities all form the basis of Pygmalion’s identity, as do works that are centered on the fusion between choir and orchestra and feature a dramaturgical approach to concert performance.

In recent years, his most notable projects have included the world premiere of Trauernacht, based on music by J.S. Bach, staged by Katie Mitchell; the rediscovery of L. Rossi’s Orfeo at the Opéra national de Lorraine and in Versailles; a celebrated performance of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine under the direction of Pierre Audi at the Holland Festival; and a cycle of J. S. Bach’s cantatas at the Philharmonie de Paris. He has also conducted the complete motets and Mass in B Minor by Bach, as well as a staged version of Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem by Jochen Sandig in the Base sous-marine in Bordeaux. Other significant productions include Mozart’s Requiem in a staged production by Romeo Castellucci as well as Lakmé by Léo Delibes at the Opéra-Comique directed by Laurent Pelly; Cavalli’s Ercole Amante with Valérie Lesort and Christian Hecq, and L’Autre Voyage based on music by Schubert, with Silvia Costa. In 2023, Raphaël Pichon conducted the Wiener Philharmoniker in a new production of Les Nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Festival, before creating Lacrime di Eros in 2024 with Romeo Castellucci, an experimental production for the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam.

Raphaël Pichon created the Pulsations festival, an eclectic and polymorphous celebration that features exceptional concerts in unexpected venues, in 2020 in Bordeaux.

In 2024, in partnership with Arte and France Musique, he launched the Les Chemins des Bach project, an initiatory journey on foot and by bicycle alongside the musicians of Pygmalion, retracing the path of J-S. Bach between Arnstadt and Lübeck, combining concerts, recordings and documentary production.

As a guest conductor, Raphaël Pichon has also been invited to conduct the Freiburger Barockorchester, Musicaeterna, the Münchner Philarmoniker, the Zürich Opera Scintilla, the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, the Mozarteum Orchester and the St Luke’s orchestra at Carnegie Hall. The 2025-2026 season will mark his debuts at the Paris Opéra and with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw orchestra.

In opera, Raphaël Pichon conducts at La Monnaie in Brussels, the Bolshoi in Moscow, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. At the same time, he continues his work with Pygmalion, notably through ambitious projects such as the resurrection of Bohuslav Martinů’s opera The Greek Passion for the Pulsations festival 2025, and a new stage creation based on Mozart’s Zaïde for the Salzburg Festival.

Raphaël Pichon’s recordings for the harmonia mundi label include the imaginary opera Enfers with baritone Stéphane Degout; Libertà!, an homage to little-known masterpieces by Mozart; J. S. Bach’s motets and St. Matthew Passion; Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine; and Mozart’s Requiem. He is an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Photo credit: Fred Mortagne