Charles Dutoit


Charles Édouard Dutoit is a Swiss conductor. He is the principal guest conductor for the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia.
In 2017, he became the 103rd recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal Award. Dutoit held previous positions with the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Tokyo NHK Symphony and the Orchestre National de France. As of 2017, he was conductor emeritus of the Verbier Music Festival Orchestra. He is an honorary member of the Ravel Foundation in France and the Stravinsky Foundation in Switzerland.
In December 2017, following allegations of sexual assault, the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies cancelled his engagements. In a statement, Dutoit denied the charges.

Biography

Dutoit was born on the 7th of October 1936 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He studied there, and graduated from the Conservatoire de musique de Genève, where he won first prize in conducting. Then he went to the Accademia Chigiana in Siena at the invitation of Alceo Galliera. In his younger days, he frequently attended Ernest Ansermet's rehearsals and had a personal acquaintance with him. He also worked with Herbert von Karajan at Lucerne as a member of the festival youth orchestra and studied at Tanglewood.
Dutoit began his professional music career in 1957 as a viola player with various orchestras across Europe and South America. In January 1959, he made his debut as a professional conductor with an orchestra of Radio Lausanne and Martha Argerich. From 1959 he was a guest conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. After this, he was the conductor for Radio Zurich until 1967, when he took over the Bern Symphony Orchestra from Paul Kletzki, where he stayed for 11 years.
While head of the Bern Symphony, he also conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico from 1973 to 1975, and Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony from 1975 to 1978. Dutoit was principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra in the early 1980s.
In 1977, Dutoit became the artistic director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Reaction to Dutoit joining the Montreal Symphony was positive. Peter G. Davis stated that Dutoit transformed the Montreal Symphony. New York Magazine wrote similarly about Dutoit, adding that he was noted for the championing of new Canadian music. Throughout these years, he called without success for a new symphony concert hall for Montréal. Dutoit resigned from the Montreal Symphony in April 2002, with immediate effect, after the Quebec Musicians Guild complained about what it called Dutoit's "offensive behaviour and complete lack of respect for the musicians". In January 2018, the OSM acknowledged ignoring complaints from musicians of verbal and 'psychological harassment' by Dutoit dating back to the 1990s. He did not return to the OSM as a guest conductor until 2016, in a concert at the new Maison Symphonique de Montréal.
Dutoit has received more than 40 international awards and distinctions, including two Grammy Awards, several Juno Awards, the Grand Prix du Président de la République, the Prix mondial du disque de Montreux, the Amsterdam Edison Award, the Japan Record Academy Award, and the German Music Critics' Award. He and the OSM made many recordings for the Decca/London label.
Dutoit first conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1980. From 1990 to 1999, he was music director of the orchestra's summer concerts at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. From 1990 to 2010, he was artistic director and principal conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra's summer festival in Saratoga Springs, New York. In 1991, he was made an Honorary Citizen of the city of Philadelphia. In February 2007, Dutoit was named the orchestra's chief conductor and artistic adviser, for a contract of four years, effective September 2008. Following the conclusion of his contract in Philadelphia in 2012, the orchestra named him its conductor laureate, as of the 2012–13 season.
Since 1990, Dutoit has directed the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. From 1991 to 2001, Dutoit was music director of the Orchestre National de France, with whom he made a number of recordings and toured extensively. In 1996, he was appointed principal conductor and in 1998 music director of Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra. For the NHK television network, he made a series of documentary films for the young people called "Cities of Music" in Venice, St Petersburg, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, New York, Vienna, Budapest, Leipzig, Dresden, Paris and London. In 1997, he was made an honorary Officer of the Order of Canada. He is also one of a handful of non-Canadian citizens to be a Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Québec.
In April 2007, Dutoit was named principal conductor and artistic director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as of 2009. In October 2019 he was scheduled to stand down as the RPO's principal conductor and to take the title of Honorary Conductor for Life of the orchestra, but instead he resigned in January 2018.
Between 2009 and 2017, Dutoit also served as the music director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland. In April 2014, Dutoit received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Classical Music Awards. He was also made an honorary member of Fondation Igor Stravinsky in Geneva and Fondation Ravel in Monfort l'Amaury, France.
In September 2018, Dutoit was named principal guest conductor of the St Petersburg Philharmonic, effective May 2019.
In late 2021, Dutoit withdrew from a scheduled subscription concert of the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra due to his infection with COVID-19. He was subsequently booked by the Orchestra to conduct in Summer, 2023.

Personal life

Dutoit shuns publicity and protects his private life from the media. He has been married four times. His first marriage was to Ruth Cury, by whom he has a son, Ivan, who lives in Santa Monica, California, with his family; his children are Anne-Sophie and Jean-Sebastian. Dutoit was also married to Argentine concert pianist Martha Argerich and to Canadian economist Marie-Josée Drouin. He is now married to Canadian violinist Chantal Juillet.

Allegations of sexual assault

In 2017 four women accused Dutoit of sexually assaulting them between the late 1970s and 2010. The alleged incidents occurred in a variety of places.
One allegation was contested by witnesses. The allegations were made by Paula Rasmussen, mezzo-soprano ; Sylvia McNair, soprano ; and Jenny Q. Chai, pianist. A singer with the Philadelphia Orchestra also said that Dutoit assaulted her in 2006 in upstate New York and again in 2010 in Philadelphia. A 24-year-old musician with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago said that Dutoit forced himself on her in 2006. In January 2018, Fiona Allan, a British theatre administrator, said that when she was an intern Dutoit sexually assaulted her at Tanglewood 20 years earlier.
In March 2018, the Boston Symphony said that Allan's allegations were "credible" and that three other women "credibly described incidents in the 1980s and 1990s in which they, too, were victims of Dutoit's sexual misconduct."
Other women also said that they had been assaulted.

Reaction

In January 2018, Dutoit resigned from his position as artistic director and principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Several other orchestras either cancelled engagements or severed ties with him, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The same month, Canadian CBC Radio/CBC Radio Two adopted a policy of no longer crediting Dutoit as conductor when it played his recordings.

Orchestras with which Dutoit has recorded

  • London Philharmonic Orchestra DGG – Philips – Decca
  • Royal Philharmonic Orchestra DGG – Decca – Erato – RCA
  • Philharmonia Orchestra, London Decca – Erato – EMI – CBS-Sony
  • London Symphony Orchestra DGG
  • English Chamber Orchestra Erato – EMI Classics for Pleasure
  • London Sinfonietta Decca
  • Bayerische Rundfunk Orchester München Decca – Erato
  • Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Decca – EMI
  • Boston Symphony Orchestra DGG
  • Los Angeles Philharmonic Decca
  • Montreal Symphony Decca-DGG-EMI-CBC Records-Philips
  • Montreal Sinfonietta Decca
  • Philadelphia Orchestra Decca
  • NHK Symphony, Tokyo Decca – Sony
  • Orchestre National de France Erato – Decca -Virgin Classics
  • Orchestre de Paris Erato
  • Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France Erato
  • Solistes de l'Opéra de Paris Erato
  • Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Decca – Pentatone
  • Orchestre de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo Erato
  • Göteborg Symphony, Sweden Sterling – Caprice – BIS
  • Orchestra de la Svizzera Italiana EMI
  • Norddeutsche Rundfunk Hamburg NDR production
  • Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra – Sony

    Honors

  • 1982 – Musician of the Year, Canadian Music Council
  • 1982 – Great Montrealer
  • 1984 – Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Montreal
  • 1985 – Docteur en Musique, Laval University, Quebec
  • 1988 – Canadian Music Council Medal
  • 1988 – Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
  • 1991 – Honorary Citizen of the City of Philadelphia
  • 1994 – Diploma of Honor by the Canadian Conference of the Arts
  • 1995 – Grand Officier de l'Ordre National du Québec
  • 1996 – Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
  • 1996 – Doctorem Musicae, McGill University
  • 2002 – Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada
  • 2003 – Prize to the best foreign Conductor 2002, Music Critic's Association of Argentina
  • 2007 – Médaille d'Or de la Ville de Lausanne
  • 2009 – Artistic Advisor, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • 2010 – Co-director of MISA Festival, Shanghai
  • 2012 – Guangzhou Opera House – Honorary Artistic Advisor
  • 2012 – The Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia – Tribute
  • 2014 – Lifetime Achievement Award – ICMA, Warsaw
  • 2015 – Honorary Member of the Igor Stravinsky Foundation, Geneva
  • 2016 – Honorary Committee Member of the Maurice Ravel Foundation, Paris
  • 2016 – Koussevitzky Artist, Boston Symphony Orchestra
  • 2016 – Nanjing University of the Arts, China: Lifetime Honorary Professor
  • 2016 – Special Contribution Award,18th Shanghai International Arts Festival
  • 2016 – Lauréat 2016, Fondation Vaudoise pour la Culture, Lausanne
  • 2017 – Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal
  • 2022 – Premio Una Vita Nella Musica from Teatro La Fenice, Venezia
  • 2024 – Asociacíon de Críticos Musicales de la Argentina, Mejor Director de Orquesta Extranjero, Temporada 2023,