Beethoven 5

CONDUCTOR
Chloé Dufresne

With her clear technique, calm authority and imaginative palette, Chloé Dufresne has made her mark as a conductor only a few years since graduating from the Sibelius Academy. She has recently been appointed Music Director of Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and serves as Associate Artist of the Orchestre National de Bretagne and Artistic Director of Orchestre Ostinato.

A background in singing and choral conducting has led Dufresne naturally to opera, and in the 2024–25 season she conducted Carmen at Theater Magdeburg, Orphée aux enfers with Opéra national du Capitole de Toulouse, L’Elisir d’amore with Opéra National de Lorraine, and a new production of Leonard Evers’ Humanoid at Semperoper Dresden. Earlier productions include Don Giovanni, Norma, Albert Herring and Offenbach’s Pomme d’Api for Opéra Rouen, Opéra de Toulon, Opéra de Nice and Opéra National de Lorraine, as well as a Bayreuth production of Wagner’s The Ring for children at the Helsinki Festival. Alongside her commitments in Colorado, this season Dufresne conducts Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz and Kuopio Symphony Orchestra.

In France, she returns to Orchestre National de Bretagne, Opéra Grand Avignon (with Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène) and Opéra National de Paris for Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera. As well as specializing in core repertoire by composers such as Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Dvořák and Beethoven, Dufresne is a strong advocate for new music and won a prize for her interpretation of music by Camille Pépin at the Besançon Conducting Competition.

In her role as Music Director of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic she will collaborate with contemporary composers including Wynton Marsalis, Hannah Kendall, Michael Daugherty and John Williams. She previously conducted music by György Ligeti, Lucas Ligeti and Hannah Kendall with Basel Sinfonietta, and works by Ross Edwards, Cecilia Damström and Ville Raasakka.

Dufresne studied viola, singing and choral conducting before completing her Masters in conducting from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 2020, where her teachers included Atso Almila, Sakari Oramo and Alain Altinoglu. In 2021 she won both audience and orchestra prizes at the Besançon Conducting Competition and was awarded 3rd prize at the Malko Competition. She was a Conducting Fellow at the 2022 Lucerne Festival and a Dudamel Fellow with Los Angeles Philharmonic.

VIOLIN
Michael Hanson

Michael Hanson has been a cornerstone of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic since 1992, when he joined as Concertmaster. For more than three decades, audiences have come to know his artistry through both his leadership of the orchestra and his many solo appearances, performing everything from Bach and Vivaldi to works by living composers. He has performed more than 25 concertos with orchestras across the West, and appeared as a soloist with the Hunan Symphony in Changsha, China.

Before making Colorado Springs his musical home, Michael performed with the Oregon Symphony in Portland, the Grant Park Symphony in Chicago, and served as Concertmaster of the West Coast Chamber Orchestra. Along the way, he has played under the direction of legendary conductors including Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Slatkin, and James dePriest.

Chamber music has also been a vital part of his career, with highlights that include years of collaboration in the Colorado College Piano Trio and performances alongside principal players of the Montreal Symphony at the Orford Arts Centre in Québec. He has also appeared at major summer festivals including Tanglewood, Sunriver, Peter Britt, and Cuchara. His teachers and mentors include Raphael Spiro, Joseph Silverstein, and James Maurer, as well as concertmasters of some of the world’s leading orchestras.

Michael is equally dedicated to music education. With his wife Catherine, he co-founded the Hanson Music Academy, and later created the Bristol Suzuki Strings program in Colorado Springs School District 11. Today, he teaches orchestra at Thomas MacLaren School and continues to mentor the next generation of musicians through private lessons—many of his students have gone on to study at top conservatories and music schools across the country.