Alain Trudel

Musician Alain Trudel has performed and recorded as both a conductor and a trombone soloist. As a conductor, he has been active mostly in Canada but has served as music director of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra in Ohio since 2018.

Trudel was born in Montreal, Quebec, on June 13, 1966. At first, he was trained as a trombonist, taking up the instrument at 12 and making his solo debut at 18 with the <a href="spotify:artist:4AcXapei4U7xnWecv9AEBd">Montreal Symphony Orchestra</a> under conductor <a href="spotify:artist:0Ku5VBNL7cfGXRhp2BxXEQ">Charles Dutoit</a>. For some years, he was predominantly active on trombone, appearing as a soloist on five continents with such ensembles as the <a href="spotify:artist:7Gg3KyhWnM9bssaRef9SBb">Austrian Radio Orchestra</a> and the <a href="spotify:artist:2wFEejnAmdHGXYdIX9HN3U">Hong Kong Philharmonic</a>, and at far-flung events such as the Tasmania New Music Festival in Australia and the Dresdner Neue Musik Tage in Germany. He also took up conducting, and in 1997, he made his recording debut in a dual capacity, performing as the soloist and leading England's <a href="spotify:artist:7BFFr4BUABKAorAN43APPd">Northern Sinfonia</a> on an album of 18th century trombone concertos by <a href="spotify:artist:5s4B01oaRxqTvONFg7Ymv1">Leopold Mozart</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3rGstcVKQhx8DhhJzIVQoe">Michael Haydn</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:49Aq12YWwKS5hg8pgInIRW">Johann Georg Albrechtsberger</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:3yOtqy9v0Tw0BIxnbBgKht">Georg Christoph Wagenseil</a>. Trudel was the first Canadian trombonist to be named a Yamaha International Artist, and that company named a mouthpiece after him.

Trudel suffered from a rare form of cancer in his late thirties and since then has been active predominantly as a conductor, although he continued to perform and record as a trombonist. He built a conducting resume in Canada as conductor of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra from 2004 to 2012 and music director of the CBC Radio Orchestra from 2006 until that group was disbanded in 2008. In 2006, he became the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Laval in suburban Montreal, and he recorded with that group. He also served as an interim music advisor for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and made debuts with the Opéra de Montréal in 2009 and with the Opéra de Québec the following year.

Trudel has held guest conductor posts with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra and the <a href="spotify:artist:7lE8hVh4BlQhEGMDfMZVXM">Victoria Symphony Orchestra</a>. He was music director of the Orchestra of London Canada from 2011 until 2014, when that group, too, was disbanded. Among Trudel's guest conducting appearances were several with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, which named him its music director, effective with the 2018-2019 season. He remained in that post as of the mid-2020s. Trudel has recorded mostly for the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22ATMA+Classique%22">ATMA Classique</a> label, for which he led the Orchestre Classique de Montréal in a recording of David Bontemps' opera La Flambeau in 2023. From 2011 to 2015 Trudel served as professor and conductor of the symphony orchestra and opera orchestra at the University of Western Ontario. ~ James Manheim, Rovi