RDSO director

Since his appointment as Music Director of the Red Deer Symphony in 1990, Claude Lapalme has made his mark as a superb conductor, an exceptional arranger and an outstanding Music Director. As a conductor, Paris newspaper Le Figaro has called him “remarkable and superb”; the Toronto Globe & Mail “assured and highly effective”; the Havana Granma “surprisingly dexterous, warm and sincere”; the Edmonton Journal “a breath of fresh air”; and the Calgary Herald “vigorous and attentive to detail”.

A 1991 Laureate of the Besançon International Conducting Competition, he has conducted orchestras around the world including the Moscow Radio and Television Orchestra as well as numerous ensembles in Hungary, the United States, Cuba, France and the Netherlands.

His Canadian credits include the Edmonton Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Winnipeg Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Laval, the Hamilton Philharmonic and numerous others. His own Red Deer Symphony has been featured on several CBC broadcasts, and has collaborated – among others – with Alberta Ballet, Edmonton’s Pro Coro, Calgary’s Early Music Voices and Calgary’s Festival Chorus. The orchestra has also toured the province of Alberta as far north as Fort McMurray.

Since the year 2001, Mr. Lapalme has become an eminent orchestrator and arranger, having composed orchestra charts for the likes of Ian Tyson and Marvin Hamlisch. His arrangements, noted for the precision of their composition as well as their expressive lushness, have been performed by top Canadian, American and Australian orchestras where they have been called “gorgeous” and “spine-chilling”. His orchestral arrangement of Ian Tyson’s Four Strong Winds, an exclusive composition for the Edmonton Symphony, was premiered to a standing ovation by an audience of over five thousand people. He also wrote five exclusive arrangements of Canadian popular songs for the Edmonton Symphony’s “Great Canadian Songbook” project.

Claude Lapalme has been an instructor at both the Universities of Toronto and Calgary, and has also been a frequent clinician with various youth groups such as the Calgary Youth Orchestra. He has also participated in the Quebec Youth Orchestra Festival, and was an adjudicator at various music festivals in Canada, as well as the 57th Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. He is also the founder of Choir Kids, a unique program that has elementary school choirs perform with the Red Deer Symphony.

For his achievements, Claude Lapalme has received recognition awards from both the City of Red Deer and the Government of Alberta. He resides in Red Deer with his wife, cellist Janet Kuschak.