Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal
Founded in 1934 by a group of devoted music lovers, with the backing of the Québec Government, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is one of the major cultural organizations of the city whose name it bears with pride.
The music directors who have contributed to its growth and success are Wilfrid Pelletier, a Montrealer by birth and conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York who became the first Artistic Director of the OSM; Désiré Defauw; Igor Markevitch; Zubin Mehta, who guided the OSM from 1961 to 1967, bringing increased prestige to the Orchestra through European tours; Franz-Paul Decker; Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos; Charles Dutoit, from 1977 to 2002, with whom the OSM assumed an important place on the international stage; and, since September 2006, Kent Nagano.