In 2024, he received the prestigious Jean‑Marie Beaudet Award in Orchestral Conducting from the Canada Council for the Arts, and in 2025 he was named one of the CBC’s “30 Classical Musicians Under 30 to Watch.”
He recently made his New York debut at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, where Phindie wrote:
“Gauthier clearly had a sense of the weight of the material, and had the requisite authority to guide the Curtis Orchestra into carrying that weight.” (2024)
Gauthier has conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra (2025), Quebec Symphony Orchestra (2024), Laval Symphony Orchestra (2023, 2025), Windsor Symphony Orchestra (2026), and Orchestre de l’Agora (2026). He will soon make his debuts with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain, the Orchestre philharmonique du Québec, and the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra (North Carolina). He is currently a finalist for the positions of Music Director of the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, reflecting growing recognition of his artistic leadership across North America.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Benoît Gauthier served as a Conducting Fellow and pursued advanced training with internationally renowned musicians and pedagogues, including Yannick Nézet‑Séguin, Ford Mylius Lallerstedt, Jim Ross, Robert Spano, Michael Stern, Noah Bendix‑Balgley, and Yuja Wang. His artistic and communicative strengths, noted by colleagues and teachers alike, led to his invitation to teach two orchestral conducting courses at Curtis during the 2025–2026 academic year.
He previously completed studies in flute with Jacinthe Forand, followed by conducting studies with Gilles Auger at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec. He has also participated in masterclasses with Alexander Shelley, Marin Alsop, and Bramwell Tovey. From 2021 to 2024, he was part of the inaugural cohort of the Orchestre Métropolitain Conducting Academy, under the direction of Yannick Nézet‑Séguin.
Deeply committed to his community, Gauthier founded the Orchestre symphonique de la Côte‑Nord (OSCN) at the age of 16, in what was then the only region of Québec without a professional orchestra. Now a recognized institution, the OSCN presents major repertoire works—including The Rite of Spring, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, and a Beethoven cycle (2023–2025)—while developing touring projects adapted to the region’s geographic realities, such as Affluence (with the Orchestre du Saguenay–Lac‑Saint‑Jean, 2022), Un vent de renouveau (2023), and the Requiem de guérison tour (2026).
In April 2025, Gauthier conducted the world premiere of Requiem de guérison by Innu composer Alexis Vollant, a powerful work for soloists, choir, and orchestra dedicated to the children of Indigenous residential schools, presented in collaboration with the OSCN. A chamber‑orchestra version of the work will tour the Côte‑Nord region in May 2026.
Actively involved in contemporary creation, Benoît Gauthier has commissioned and premiered several works with the OSCN, including Nordicité (2022) by Martin Caron, Deux abstractions lyriques (2025) by Charles‑Vincent Lemelin, and Suite symphonique sur Cyrano de Bergerac (2023) by Simon Desbiens.
A versatile musician, he is also a pianist with a strong passion for vocal collaboration. He has studied with Miloš Repický, Wolfgang Holzmair, Christine Brewer, François Le Roux, Olivier Godin, and Jennifer Larmore, leading to engagements as assistant conductor in opera productions such as The Comet / Poppea by George Lewis and The Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček with the Curtis Opera Theatre (2024), as well as Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini with the Berlin Opera Academy (2022).
Benoît Gauthier is a recipient of the 2023 Emerging Artistic Talent Award from Culture Côte‑Nord, and has received numerous grants, notably from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the AIDA Fund, and the Jeunesses musicales du Canada Foundation, in his work as a conductor, flutist, and composer.
