BIOGRAPHY

Patrick Botti has been a passionate and energetic leader of professional and civic orchestras for more than four decades, in both the United States and France.

Born in Marseille, France, he studied conducting, piano, solfège, harmony, and voice at the Marseille National Conservatory, the Académie Régionale de piano in Marseille, the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, and the Paris National Conservatory.

Patrick holds degrees from the Marseille and Paris National Conservatories, where he was the winner of numerous awards and scholarships. He completed postgraduate studies in Musicological Research at both the Sorbonne University and the Paris Conservatory, and in conducting at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris.

The recipient of a Fulbright Grant and an Annette Kade Foundation Fellowship, he came to the United States in 1982 to study conducting at the New England Conservatory and Boston University.

His conducting teachers have included Jeno Rehak and Pierre Dervaux in Europe and Benjamin Zander, Richard Pittman, Thomas Dunn and Kenneth Kiesler in the United States. He has also studied under conductors such as Gustav Meier, Mark Gibson, Franco Ferrara and Manuel Rosenthal.

Patrick also studied analysis and composition with Jacques Casterède, Olivier Messiaen, Thomas William McKinley, musicology with Yves Gérard ,piano with Pierre Barbizet, Madeleine de Valmalète, Monique de Bruhnoff, Lilou Calvin and Claude Kahn. He studied voice, harmony, counterpoint, solfège and analysis at the Marseille Conservatory from where he graduated with high honors.

Patrick started conducting at the age of sixteen. He began his career as Music Director of the Echo du Futur Symphony Orchestra in Marseille then went on to found and direct the highly acclaimed Concilium Musicum de Paris, for which he remained Artistic Advisor for many years. In 1984, he created the Jamaica Plain Symphony-French Symphony of Boston, and was the principal conductor of the French Orchestral Ensemble of Boston. Patrick was subsequently invited in 1988 by the French Ministry of Culture to work on the restructuring of French orchestras using American models. While in France, Patrick worked with professional orchestras, especially the ensemble Mouvement 12, in Toulouse, France.

Patrick has conducted numerous orchestras in Europe and America throughout his career, including the Athens Camerata in Greece, the Paris Conservatory Orchestra, the Marseille Conservatory Orchestra. the Royal College of Music Orchestra in London, the Luxembourg Radio Television Symphony Orchestra, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra in Canada, the New England Conservatory Orchestras, the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Springs Symphony and the Boston Philharmonic. His interpretations of both French and American music have received critical acclaim in outlets including The Boston Globe, and he has been heard on National Public Radio, the CBC Network (Canada), the BBC (London), and the French National Radio.

In 2007 he founded the Waltham Symphony Orchestra, a professional-civic orchestra in the Boston area which ran through 2020, under his leadership. Patrick was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Central Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra (presently Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra) from 1992 to 2002 and Artistic Director and Conductor of the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra from 1993 to 2000.

Patrick is also an accomplished pianist, who has performed extensively in Europe as a soloist and as a member of the Trio Poulenc, having been a fellow at the Marguerite Long Piano Academy and piano faculty at the Piano Regional Academy in Marseille, and regional conservatories in France.

Patrick is also known for his improvisation skills in all styles. He has played in many chamber ensembles and has performed as a jazz pianist. Patrick has also been music director for shows with amateur and student groups in France and in the US.

Alongside his conducting, Patrick has had an extensive career in the field of religious music. He was trained as a church musician and as a liturgist in Marseille, France. The core of his early musicological studies at the Sorbonne was in the field of Catholic Plain Chant and Catholic Liturgy. He started directing church choirs and musical ensembles by the age of seventeen. He has been music director as well as guest organist for numerous churches in France and in the United States over the course of fifty years. He has composed a number of liturgical songs and mass settings for the Catholic ritual,some used in protestant churches. Patrick is also an accomplished organist, and frequently plays the organ in his work in churches. He has also played harpsichord with several ensembles.

Patrick Botti has deep experience as a music educator, teaching at the high school and university level. He has been on the faculty at the Jesuit College in Paris, the Académie de Piano Marguerite Long in Marseille, and the Continuing Education Department at Assumption College in Worcester (MA) where he taught undergraduate and graduate classes on music appreciation and opera. He was a guest lecturer in ethnomusicology at Clark University in Worcester, and has been on the faculty of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge (MA) where he taught solfège, score reading and conducting. In 2017 he was invited as a Valente Scholar to Bentley University in Waltham (MA).

Patrick Botti is proud to combine his deep musical experience and maturity with a modern vision of music-making and orchestra conducting that includes broader and more inventive repertoire, and that emphasizes community engagement. He aims in everything he does to share the joy and power of music.