About Fabien
Fabien Gabel is Music Director of the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, leading concerts across the orchestra’s homes in Vienna’s Musikverein, St. Pölten, and Grafenegg. He has established an international career of the highest caliber, appearing with orchestras such as Orchestre de Paris, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Seoul Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Praised for his imaginative programs, Gabel crafts eclectic combinations of beloved masterworks and lesser-known gems of the repertoire.
The 2025/2026 season is marked by important collaborations: Gabel debuts at the Metropolitan Opera with Carmen; leads a five-city tour of Spain with Yuja Wang and Mahler Chamber Orchestra; and conducts premiere performances of Samy Moussa’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (Emmanuel Pahud) with Orchestre National de France and Detroit Symphony, as well as Donghoon Shin’s viola concerto Threadsuns with Minnesota Orchestra and Tonkünstler-Orchester.
Additional highlights include returns to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Stavanger Symphony, Toronto Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg. He also makes his South American debut with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) and debuts at the Tongyeong International Music Festival, and with Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
In France, Gabel works regularly with all major Parisian orchestras and made a highly acclaimed debut at the Opéra national de Paris during the 2022/2023 season. He recently led the recording of a new score for Abel Gance’s 1927 epic film Napoléon with the Orchestre National de France and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. The first part of the film was presented at the 2024 Festival de Cannes and shown in theatres, on French television, and Netflix.
Gabel performs with many of the world’s leading soloists, including Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Bertrand Chamayou, Seong-Jin Cho, Yunchan Lim, Francesco Piemontesi, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Daniil Trifonov, Augustin Hadelich, Vilde Frang, Daniel Lozakovich, Christian Tetzlaff, Gautier Capuçon, Daniel Müller-Schott, Johannes Moser, Håkan Hardenberger, and Emmanuel Pahud. His collaborations with singers include Benjamin Bernheim, Nicole Car, Asmik Grigorian, Nikola Hillebrand, Petra Lang, Isabel Leonard, Lisette Oropesa, Michael Schade, Golda Schultz, and Michael Spyres.
Having attracted international attention in 2004 as the winner of the Donatella Flick conducting competition, Fabien Gabel was Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra 2004-2006. He was Music Director of Orchestre symphonique de Québec 2012-2021 and Orchestre Français des Jeunes 2017-2021.
Born in Paris to a family of accomplished musicians, Fabien Gabel began playing the trumpet at the age of six and honed his skills at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe with Reinhold Friedrich. He played with various Parisian orchestras under prominent conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle and Bernard Haitink before embarking on his conducting career. Gabel was named ‘Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres’ by the French government in January 2020.