Jean-François Gonzales-Hamilton :</strong> synthetic note, November 20th, 2019.

More than forty years devoted to music and culture through activities as conductor, professor of chamber music at the Conservatoire National de Région de Versailles (National Conservatory of Versailles, France), violinist, composer, writer of musical and pedagogical books.

Awarded the medal “Chevalier de l’ordre national du Mérite” in January 2019 and the medal "Chevalier des Palmes académiques" in January 2010, by the French government.

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- conductor :

816 concerts and other musical events conducted since 1977.

For twelve years, JFGH used to conduct the concerts of Musique en la Sainte-Chapelle (Paris) ; he conducted the official symphonic concert given in Paris on the occasion of the 20^th anniversary of the French-German Treaty of Co-operation ; he conducted also for several radio and television broadcastings ; he was the only European conductor invited by the Aspen Music Festival (U. S. A.) in 1978. He was appointed unanimously Music director-Conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique du Rail (Paris) in September 2009. Invited to conduct and teach in China (April 2010, summer 2012, December 2012, November 2013, December 2013), in India (August 2011, on a mission for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs), in Korea (March 2013), in Russia (July and October 2015, December 2016, January 2018), in Hungary (twelve concerts and two recordings from February 2017 to November 2019).

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- professor of chamber music at the Conservatoire National de Région de Versailles (National Conservatory of Versailles, France) :

JFGH was first in the National Competitive Examination for positions as Professor of Chamber Music in the National Conservatories of France, 1978. In more than thirty years, he educated around one thousand and five hundred young professional musicians of whom about 80 % come from all over the world.

So educated, these foreign musicians become ambassadors of the French thought and style and spread them widely.

Many of his former students hold positions in important orchestras and schools, in France and abroad.

JFGH's teaching goes far beyond music. It could rather be called a quest of Truth (in the philosophical meaning of that word) : many of his students call JFGH "Socrates", comparing his teaching with the one of the founder of the Western philosophy !

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- violinist, composer, writer of musical and pedagogical books :

*JFGH is considered one of the rare theorists of modern violin and has a strong authority in the field of violin teaching. He published, together with a former student of his, the method of violin and viola which is the most widely used in French speaking countries and beyond (so far, more than 50,000 copies have been spread around the world).

After being for several years one of the youngest musicians in the Paris Radio orchestras, he made as violinist a great number of concerts, he participated in many recordings (especially movie music), he released eight commercial discs and CDs (among which a <em>Grand Prix du  disque</em>), he played for the main French cultural radio (France-Culture). As a French artist, he was invited twice by the Japanese company Mitsui to play on its luxury cruisers with three of his former students. The company Cunard invited him to play aboard the Queen Elizabeth II with the same team.

*As composer, JFGH received the composition award from the <em>Fondation de France</em>. His works have been published, performed in concert, broadcast, recorded.

Jean-François GONZALES-HAMILTON,

conductor

Jean-François GONZALES-HAMILTON is one of the most active conductors of the present generation. For the past several years, he has conducted more than eighty concerts annually, a large portion of them in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (816 concerts from 1977 to November 2019).

After completing brilliant academic studies, he decided to devote himself to music and received the highest awards in eight fields at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and the Conservatoire National de Versailles before going to the United States for additional conducting training.

Besides his favoured romantic repertoire and baroque music, J.-F. GONZALES-HAMILTON regularly conducts the foremost parisian choruses in the major works of sacred music. He has participated in many well known television programs and was chosen to conduct the official symphonic concert given in Paris on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the French-German Treaty of Co-operation.

J.-F. GONZALES-HAMILTON's concerts have taken him throughout Europe and the Mediterranean countries as well as to the United States, Japan, China, India, Korea, Russia and Hungary. At present, he pursues two main careers : conductor and violinist. In addition, he is professor of chamber music at the Conservatoire National de Région de Versailles and has had several of his own original works published (in 1983, he received the composition award from the Fondation de France).

J.-F. GONZALES-HAMILTON speaks French, English and Russian ; conversational Italian, Spanish, Japanese.

He is "chevalier" in the French “ordre national du Mérite” since January 2019 and "chevalier" in the French order of "Palmes académiques" since January 2010.

Jean-François GONZALES-HAMILTON
résidence 7
32 rue du Maréchal Joffre
78000 VERSAILLES, France

'phone : +33 1 39 51 66 05

e-mail : jfghspeedo@gmail.com