Franco-British conductor Sammy El Ghadab has developed a career shared between the operatic stage and the concert platform. French music holds an essential place in his work — rooted in his training, his mentors and his experience in the theatre — yet his repertoire is broad, extending from the great symphonic and operatic traditions to contemporary music and other musical horizons. He has collaborated with Louis Langrée, Raphaël Pichon and Thomas Hengelbrock, and has worked with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Orchestre du Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Reims, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre Symphonique Région Centre–Val de Loire, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Limoges and Les Frivolités Parisiennes.
He founded the vocal ensemble EOS XXI, dedicated to recording contemporary music by living composers. Its first album, scheduled for 2026, will be devoted to the complete a cappella choral works of Olivier Kaspar. Through this project, he pursues an artistic path that connects heritage and creation, with vocal work at its centre.
Among his forthcoming engagements, Sammy El Ghadab will make his debut with the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Lyon in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges. He will also conduct Lecocq’s La Fille de Madame Angot, return to the Orchestre National Avignon-Provence for a New Year concert dedicated to Offenbach, and work again with Les Frivolités Parisiennes for Reynaldo Hahn’s musical comedy Le Temps d’aimer.
The 2025–2026 season places him at the heart of the operatic repertoire, between opéra-comique, bel canto and major stage works, with Hervé’s Le Petit Faust at the Opéra de Tours and the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in Paris, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, and Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice at the Opéra de Limoges and the Opéra de Vichy.
From 2023 to July 2025, he was a member of the Académie Favart at the Opéra-Comique. There he took part in productions emblematic of the diversity of the repertoire: Lecocq’s La Fille de Madame Angot, Bizet’s Carmen, Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Charpentier’s Louise, and Au Loin, ma Ville, a contemporary adaptation after Louise.
His relationship with the stage is nourished by a decisive vocal practice. He sang with the Choir of the Orchestre de Paris, working under Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Harding, Kazuki Yamada and Riccardo Chailly, among others. This experience shaped a precise awareness of breath, text and the relationship between musical gesture and the stage.
Trained at the École Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred Cortot” and at the CNSMD de Lyon in choral conducting, orchestral conducting and orchestration, he makes French heritage an anchor point for a wider exploration of repertoire, always guided by clarity of line, theatrical energy and attention to colour.