Chloé Dufresne
About this Artist
With her clear technique, calm authority and imaginative palette, Chloé Dufresne has made her mark as a conductor only a few years since graduating from the Sibelius Academy. She has recently been appointed Music Director of Colorado Springs Philharmonic from the 2025–26 season, and serves as Associate Artist of the Orchestre National de Bretagne and Artistic Director of Orchestre Ostinato.
A background in singing and choral conducting has led Dufresne naturally to opera, and in the 2024–25 season she conducted Carmen at Theater Magdeburg, Orphée aux enfers with Opéra national du Capitole de Toulouse, L’Elisir d’amore with Opéra national de Lorraine, and a new production of Leonard Evers’ Humanoid at Semperoper Dresden. Earlier productions include Don Giovanni, Norma, Albert Herring and Offenbach’s Pomme d’Api for Opéra Rouen, Opéra de Toulon, Opéra de Nice and Opéra National de Lorraine, as well as a Bayreuth production of Wagner’s The Ring for children at the Helsinki Festival.
Alongside her commitments in Colorado, this season Dufresne conducts Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz and Kuopio Symphony Orchestra. In France, she returns to Orchestre National de Bretagne, Opéra Grand Avignon (with Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène) and Opéra national de Paris for Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera.
As well as specialising in core repertoire by composers such as Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Dvořák and Beethoven, Dufresne is a strong advocate for new music and won a prize for her interpretation of music by Camille Pepin at the Besançon Conducting Competition. In her role as Music Director of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic she will collaborate with contemporary composers including Wynton Marsalis, Hannah Kendall, Michael Daugherty and John Williams. She previously conducted music by György Ligeti, Lucas Ligeti and Hannah Kendall with Basel Sinfonietta, and works by Ross Edwards, Cecilia Damström and Ville Raasakka.
Dufresne studied viola, singing and choral conducting before completing her Masters in conducting from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 2020, where her teachers included Atso Almila, Sakari Oramo and Alain Altinoglu. In 2021 she won both audience and orchestra prizes at the Besançon Conducting Competition and was awarded 3rd prize at the Malko Competition. She was a Conducting Fellow at the 2022 Lucerne Festival and a Dudamel Fellow with Los Angeles Philharmonic.