Artistic director of Les Musiciens du Louvre that he founded in 1982, Marc Minkowski created the Ré Majeure Festival on Île de Ré (French Atlantic coast) in 2011, was General Manager of the Opéra National de Bordeaux, Artistic Director of the Mozartwoche (Mozart Week) in Salzburg from 2013 to 2017, and has been also the Artistic Advisor of Kanazawa Orchestra (Japan). In 2018, he was honored as a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

After studying the bassoon, Marc Minkowski began conducting at an early age, attending maestro Charles Bruck’s academy at the Pierre Monteux Memorial School, Hancock, Maine. At the age of nineteen, he founded Les Musiciens du Louvre, an ensemble that played an active role in the revival of Baroque music. Under his direction, Les Musiciens du Louvre explored both French Baroque music and Handel, before expanding their repertoire to include Mozart, Rossini, Offenbach, Bizet, and Wagner.

Marc Minkowski regularly appears in many of the world’s most prestigious opera houses and concert halls. In Paris, he has conducted Idomeneo, Platée, Die Zauberflöte, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Iphigénie en Tauride, Mireille and Alceste at the Opéra national de Paris; La Belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Carmen and Die Feen at the Théâtre du Châtelet; and La Dame blanche, Pelléas et Mélisande, Cendrillon, Die Fledermaus, Mârouf and Manon at the Opéra Comique. At the Opéra National de Bordeaux, he has conducted Pelléas et Mélisande, La Vie Parisienne, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Manon, Carmen, and Robert le Diable.

He has conducted several operas at the Salzburg Festival (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mitridate, Così fan tutte, Lucio Silla, Die Fledermaus), and at Aix-en-Provence festival (L’incoronazione di Poppea, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Don Giovanni, Les Boréades and Il turco in Italia).

His other international engagements have included: San Francisco (Don Giovanni), Brussels (Les Huguenots, Hamlet, and Il Trovatore at La Monnaie), Zurich, Geneva (Les Huguenots), Valencia (The Tales of Hoffmann), Venice, Moscow (first Pelléas et Mélisande ever on a russian stage at the Stanislavski Theatre, which won many awards), Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna (Hamlet, Fidelio, Le Nozze di figaro and Der Fliegende Holländer at the Theater an der Wien, Alcina and Gluck’s Armide at the Vienna State Opera). Since the 2014-2015 season, he has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Idomeneo, Traviata, Don Giovanni) and the Teatro alla Scala (Lucio Silla, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and l’Heure espagnole). He conducted Da Ponte Trilogy (director Ivan Alexandre) at the Drottningholm Festival, at the Royal Opera of Versailles Château, in Barcelona (Liceu) and Bordeaux National Opera.

With an active interest in collaborating with a diverse range of directors and choreographers, he has worked with Laurent Pelly, Olivier Py, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Bartabas, Sir Richard Eyre, Ivan Alexandre, Klaus Michael Grüber, Vincent Huguet. For the first time, he worked with Bob Wilson for Le Messie (at the Mozartwoche 2020 in Salzburg), which was performed at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris (September 2020) and at the Grand Théâtre de Genève (October 2020).

Marc Minkowski is also in high demand on the concert platform in standard and modern symphonic repertoire, conducting orchestras such as: DSO Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Kanazawa Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchester du Mariinsky, OSRC de Tours, National Orchestra of Spain, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR), National