Omar El Jamali
Conductor
Biography
Omar El Jamali has established himself on the international scene as a finalist and prizewinner in several prestigious competitions, including the Antal Dorati Conducting Competition (2021), the BMI Bucharest Symphony Orchestra Competition (2021), and the Erich Bergel Competition (2022). In April 2024, he once again caught the attention of the musical world during the renowned Malko Competition.
Since then, he has served as assistant conductor to Cristian Măcelaru at the Orchestre National de France, taking part in major programs during the 2024 and 2025 seasons alongside world-renowned artists such as Beatrice Rana, Nemanja Radulovic, Alexandra Conunova, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Alexandre Kantorow, and the Janoska Ensemble.
In the summer of 2024, he was selected as a Conducting Fellow at both the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. His acclaimed appearance at the 2024 Enescu Festival led to an invitation for the 2025 edition, where he made his official debut as a featured conductor. He led several concerts and also served as assistant and associate conductor to James Gaffigan, Daniel Harding, and Santtu- Matias Rouvali.
He has conducted numerous ensembles in competitions, masterclasses, and concerts, including the Mihail Jora Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest MAV Szimfonikus, the Romanian Chamber Orchestra, the Filarmonica de Stat Târgu Mureș, the National Radio and Television Orchestra of Albania, and the Hungarian National Orchestra Szeged, among others.
Trained in film scoring at the Berklee College of Music under Claudio Ragazzi and Eric Reasoner (both Grammy-nominated), Omar El Jamali later pursued conducting studies with Cristian Măcelaru, Kenneth Kiesler, and Francisco Noya at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and the Schola Cantorum de Paris.
Alongside his conducting career, Omar El Jamali is the General Director and co-founder of the Académie de Direction de Neuilly et Grand Paris, a conducting academy based in Paris that collaborates regularly with the Orchestre Pasdeloup, Orchestre Colonne, and Orchestre Lamoureux.
Press
“El Jamali delicately conducted Doráti’s lyrical piece for string orchestra and oboe, “Notturno”: Andante (1926), followed by an exuberant, often sumptuous performance of two movements from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. Omar demonstrated a mastery of the myriad moment-by-moment demands of each moment on the podium – embodying both the composers’ most spiritual and dynamic intentions.”
— Papageno.com, Hongrie
« El Jamali led Doráti’s lyrical piece for string orchestra and oboe: “Notturno”: Andante (1926) with delicacy, followed by an exuberant, if often sumptuous, execution of two movements from Tchaikovski’s Symphony No. 6. Omar demonstrated mastery of a million different split-second demands of each moment on the podium – an embodiment of the composers’ most spiritual as well as kinetic intentions. »
Papageno.com Hongrie