Débora Waldman’s life course took her to
three different countries before she was 15.
Born in Brazil, she grew up in Israel, then
lived in Argentina. She studied in Paris at the
Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et
de Danse, and became Kurt Masur’s assistant at
the Orchestre National de France between 2006
and 2009.
In 2008, ADAMI named her ‘Talent Conductor’,
and in 2011 she received an award from the
Simone and Cino del Duca Foundation, under the
aegis of the Académie de Beaux-Arts.
In September 2020, she took up her post as Music
Director of the Orchestre national Avignon-
Provence, a contract renewed until 2026.
On this occasion, she became the first woman to
head a permanent French national orchestra.
In September 2022, she was also appointed
Associate Conductor at the Dijon Opera after a
dazzling Don Pasquale in spring 2022.
She also conducted the Orchestre de Dijon-
Bourgogne at the 30th Victoires de la Musique in
March 2023, the Orchestre National de Lyon at
the Festival de la Côte Saint André, the Orchestre
Philharmonique de Radio France, the Hamburg
Symphony Orchestra, the Halle Staatskapelle,
the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra,
the Colombian National Orchestra, the Lille
National Orchestra, the Orchestre de Bretagne, the
Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, and the Orchestre
Lamoureux at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.
In opera, she has conducted Aïda, Madame
Butterfly, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo, Stiffelio et la
Sérénade by French composer Sophie Gail at the
Opéra Grand Avignon.
Future engagements include concerts with the
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the
Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, the Orchestre
Symphonique Région Centre-Val de Loire/Tours,
the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre
Philharmonique de Strasbourg and the Jerusalem
Chamber Orchestra.
She works and evolves in the tradition that
affirms that one must ‘constantly question’.
Committed to a message of peace, Débora
Waldman conducted the concert ‘Thessaloniki,
Crossroads of Civilisations’ in honour of Arab-
Israeli friendship.
A dynamic conductor, she has been particularly
involved in the transmission of music through
the Philharmonie de Paris’s Démos project since
its inception in 2010. In June 2019, she will
conduct the world premiere of the
Grande Guerre symphony written in 1917 by the
French composer Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955),
whose forgotten score she has rediscovered.
She conducted the Paris premiere in 2021 with
the Orchestre National de France at the Maison
de la Radio.
This discovery led to the production of a
documentary on its creation, and a book entitled
La symphonie oubliée, cross portrait of the
composer and the conductor, published
by Robert Laffont