Conductor

Omar El Jamali.

About

Moroccan-born conductor Omar El Jamali has gained international recognition as a finalist and award winner at competitions such as Antal Dorati (2021), BMI Bucharest Symphony Orchestra Competition (2021), and Erich Bergel Competition (2022). In April 2024, he was a quarter-finalist at the prestigious Malko Competition. Following this achievement, he was invited to serve as Assistant Conductor to Cristian Macelaru and Alexander Kantorow at the Orchestre National de France for May 2024.

Omar studied film scoring at Berklee College of Music under Grammy nominee Claudio Ragazzi and Eric Reasoner. He furthered his conducting studies with Cristian Măcelaru, Neil Varon, Kenneth Kiesler, and Francisco Noya in prestigious institutions such as L’École Normale de Musique de Paris and La Schola Cantorum de Paris.

He has led orchestras in competitions, masterclasses, and concerts that include the Budapest MAV Szimfonikus Orchestra, Romanian Chamber Orchestra, Eastman Philharmonia, Filarmonica de Stat Târgu Mureș Orchestra, National Radio & Television Albania Orchestra, and Hungarian National Orchestra Szeged, among others. Omar is the General Director and Co-Founder of L’Académie de Direction de Neuilly et Grand Paris, which collaborates regularly with l’Orchestre Pasdeloup, Orchestre Colonne, and Orchestre Lamoureux.

For the upcoming season, Omar El Jamali’s engagements include collaborations with the Budapest MAV Szimfonikus Orchestra, Plock Symphony Orchestra, and the Filarmonica de Stat Târgu Mureș Orchestra.

"I cannot think of a person that deserves your attention more than Omar El Jamali."

Christian Măcelaru

"He made an immediate impression through his natural talent, magnetic personality, brilliant mind, excellent musical instinct and a very warm personality. Mr. El Jamali is a committed, impressive musician and a mature thinker. He possesses a natural ability to bring people together.

I encounter a lot of young conducting talent. However, Omar El Jamali has stood out as one whose abilities and devotion to their craft will surely lead to a very meaningful career in music."

Christian Macelaru

Orchestre National de France, Music Director

"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

Hungaria

"He also conducted Dvorak's Symphony No. IX with masterly skill, securing his place in the final. Under his baton, Budapest's MAV Symphony Orchestra performed Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony, as well as a rare piece by Hungarian composer Antal Doráti.

A very fine musical performance that drew rapturous applause from the audience. "

vh magazine

Marocco

"There was a kind of dance to it. It was very vocal. It was very heartfelt, actually. I was really quite touched. He understands the bigger context of this music: where it's coming from and what it's related to."

"I mean there was a real emotion to it - it was in the arms and it was on his face. And it varied throughout as well. I mean, this was really the Haydn that I dreamed of hearing today. And I just loved the way he did it. He approached it with tension in the places where it needed tension in the upper arm and the shoulders where it was nice to see the variation between the pianissimo being forwards in the body and then him also opening up and having a little bit more authority in them and and having a little bit more ground and it was beautifully done. I really enjoyed it."

"an open-hearted musician. I think a little bit of Ryan Bancroft, who won here in 2018. The sense of someone who really is willing to sort of to show their soul, even when talking to the orchestra, actually."