Charles Dutoit

Charles Édouard Dutoit (born 7 October 1936) is a Swiss conductor. He is currently the principal guest conductor for the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia and co-director of the MISA Festival in Shanghai. 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, 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.

Dutoit was born 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 professi…