Robert Debbaut

Robert Debbaut has led orchestras and opera companies in the United States as well as in Central and North America, Asia and Europe. Critics have called him “”a world-class conductor”” (Salt Lake Tribune), “with the force of emotions in his direction”” (Prensa Libre Guatemala) and “an incisiveness verging on the dance”” (Kansas City Star). Included among the many orchestras he has guest conducted are the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, DePaul Opera, Filharmonia Sudecka (Poland), Hartford Symphony, International Symphony Orchestra (Canada), Kharkiv Philharmonic (Ukraine), Milwaukee Symphony, North Bohemian Philharmonic, prominent orchestras in Russia’s Great Novgorod, Saint Petersburg, and Yaroslavl, the Shanghai Conservatory Orchestra, Utah Opera, Utah Symphony, and the National Symphony of Guatemala where he has been a frequent guest conductor during the past two decades.

Throughout his career Robert Debbaut has both composed and arranged music. Aside from studying a repertoire that includes works from Adams to Zwilich, his only formal study of composition and orchestration was with the legendary American composer Claude T. Smith. Dr. Debbaut’s recent works for orchestra include “Flight,” “Running,” and a suite entitled “Great New City,” “Suicide Requiem” for SATB chorus and orchestra, “A Trilogy of Joy” for SSAA chorus and piano (a setting poems by Sara Teasdale, the first woman and poet to win the Pulitzer Prize), Concertino for Flute, String Quintet, and Piano, and Concertino for Tenor Sax and Chamber Orchestra. His most recent arrangements are of the works of Afro-Caribbean violinist/composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Afro-Cuban violinist/composer Joseph White, Viktor Kosenko, a pioneer for music education in the USSR, Louise Farrenc, the only woman to hold a faculty appointment at a major European conservatory (Paris) in the 19th Century, and the music of his beloved Mozart, most recently creating a concert ending to his 1777 opera “Il re pastore” (The Shepherd King).
Robert Debbaut holds the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from the University of Michigan where he was the first American conductor to be Fellow in Conducting. At the Tanglewood Music Center he was the first recipient of the Maurice Abravanel Award and in the last conducting class of Leonard Bernstein. His teachers and mentors include Maurice Abravanel, Neeme Järvi, Helmuth Rilling and his principal teacher Gustav Meier.