Conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud has specialized in neglected French opera in addition to the standard repertory. He also has an active career as an orchestral conductor. Born in 1969, Tingaud studied conducting and piano at the Paris Conservatory. He founded an orchestra, Ostinato, which he conducted in a production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, and which has continued to perform. Tingaud was hired as an assistant to conductor Manuel Rosenthal, who was still active as a nonagenarian and who had studied with Maurice Ravel; in this way, Tingaud absorbed some of the more arcane aspects of the French operatic tradition. He became a specialist in neglected French operas, conducting performances of such works as Massenet's Sapho, Chabrier's Le roi malgré lui, and Reynaldo Hahn's Ciboulette, among many others. Many of these performances took place at Ireland's Wexford Festival, where Tingaud made the first of a series of ongoing appearances in 2001. He has also appeared with opera companies across France, Europe, and the U.S., including Opera Lille in Belgium, the Prague National Theatre, and the Palm Beach Opera. Tingaud has guest conducted a large variety of orchestras, including the English Chamber Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, and the Warsaw Philharmonic. In September of 2019, he was named first guest conductor of the Beethoven Academy Orchestra in Poland. Tingaud has recorded for the Dynamic, Philips, and Naxos labels. Many of his recordings have focused on rare French operas, but he has also recorded orchestral music, leading Ostinato in an album of symphonic works by French pop songwriter William Sheller, and issuing an album of Bizet's rare Roma Symphony with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Tingaud, leading the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the RCS Voices, released an album of rarely heard choral works by César Franck. ~ James Manheim