Music Director
Regularly invited to conduct in Canada and overseas, Dina Gilbert attracts critical acclaim for her energy, precision and versatility, as well as the great passion she brings to the orchestral repertoire. Currently Music Director of the Kamloops Symphony (British Columbia) and the Orchestre symphonique de l'Estuaire (Québec), Dina is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Ensemble Arkea, a Montreal-based chamber orchestra focusing on contemporary music.
Dina is regularly invited by leading Canadian orchestras such as the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre métropolitain, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Regina Symphony Orchestra and the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.
She has recently made debut performances in the United States with the Eugene Symphony and the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra as well as in Asia conducting a series of five concerts with the Sinfonia Varsovia in Niigata and Tokyo in April and May 2017.
Passionate about expanding classical audiences and with an innate curiosity towards non-classical musical genres, Dina has conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre national de Lyon in several Hip Hop Symphonic programmes collaborating with renowned Hip hop artists. She has conducted the world premiere of the film The Red Violin, with orchestra and soloist Lara St. John at the Festival de Lanaudière and in January 2019 will conduct the North American premiere of the film The Artist with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
Further highlights of the upcoming season include her debuts with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Omaha Symphony, the Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières. She has been invited to return to conduct The Nutcracker with the Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, and to conduct the premiere of Lady Chatterley's Lover, by Cathy Marston.
From 2013 to 2016, Dina Gilbert was assistant conductor of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Maestro Kent Nagano, also assisting guest conductors including Zubin Mehta, Sir Roger Norrington, Lawrence Foster and Giancarlo Guerrero. In April 2016, she received great acclaim for stepping in to replace Maestro Alain Altinoglu with the OSM in a program showcasing Gustav Holst's The Planets.
Dina Gilbert earned her doctorate from the Université de Montréal, where she studied with Jean-François Rivest and Paolo Bellomia, and polished her skills in masterclasses with Kenneth Kiesler, Leonid Grin, Peter Eötvös, Johannes Schlaefli, Pinchas Zukerman and Neeme Järvi. During her doctoral studies she was awarded a grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture. She has also received support from the Canada Arts Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and from the Père-Lindsay Foundation.