Composer/conductor Michel Galante is the founder and artistic director of the Argento New Music Project. He has guest conducted the Royal Irish Academy of Music, St. Peterburg Symphony, St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, Moscow Symphony, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Janáček Philharmonic, Artes National Orchestra, Decoda Ensemble, Ergo Ensemble, Ensemble Courage, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, TACTUS, Cornell University Chorus, Dessoff Choir, and Monday Evening Concerts Ensemble, amongst many other ensembles.
Reviewing his European operatic debut, Shirley Apthorp from the Financial Times (London), wrote “Michel Galante conducts with precision and empathy.” George Grella of the New York Classical Review wrote “[Mahler’s] Symphony No. 9 is an endless line. Galante formed and followed it with exceptional shape and focus.” He has recently been further praised in New York Times reviews by Steve Smith and Viviane Schweitzer as a “clean, clear leader” whose “insightful conducting” leads “tour de force performances.”
On three occasions with three separate works, he conducted the music of Boulez for the composer in rehearsal and performance. He has conducted over 100 world premieres, including those by leading composers Beat Furrer, Erin Gee, Fred Lerdahl, Sebastian Currier, Bernhard Lang, Helmut Lachenmann, Philippe Hurel, and Georg Friedrich Haas, notably Haas’ opera, Thomas, at the Schwetzingen Opera Festival. His CD of the music of Tristan Murail on the Aeon label won a Geijutsu Record Academy Award.
As a composer, Michel Galante has received composition awards including Fulbright, Hertz, and Mellon fellowships, as well as prizes from ASCAP and the Composer's Guild of America. He earned a DMA in musical composition from Columbia University, and his composition catalogue, which consists of works for voice, instrumental soloists and ensembles, and orchestra, includes stage works for New Chamber Ballet and the Kate Weare Dance Company, and works for the New York New Music Ensemble, Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Court-Circuit, and violinist Viviane Hagner.
From 2009-2015, and in 2018, he was co-founder and artistic director of the Moving Sounds Festival, which pairs contemporary music with other artistic disciplines such as dance, visual arts, and various electronic musical genres, with the aim of bringing disparate audiences together.
He is responsible for introducing many international composers and artists to the United States, and to New York, including composers such as Gerard Pesson, Philippe Hurel, Georg Friedrich Haas, Beat Furrer, Eva Reiter, and popular/electronic artists such as Dorian Concept, Dieb13, Soap and Skin.