
"one of the most gifted conductors born in the last decades in Romania"
George Enescu Festival Journal, September 7th 2011
Gabriel Bebeşelea is the Principal Conductor of the “George Enescu” Philharmonic Orchestra Bucharest.
Gabriel Bebeşelea enjoys a vibrant international career, being invited by acclaimed ensembles such as the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the PKF-Prague Philharmonia, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the and the Tonkunstler Orchestra.
With the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, he recorded a CD featuring George Enescu’s rediscovered oratorio “Strigoii” (The Ghosts) and his “Pastorale - Fantaisie pour petite orchestre” (edition curated by Gabriel Bebeşelea). The CD was released under the label Capriccio in September 2018.
A remarkable opera conductor, Bebeşelea was named Principal Conductor of the Romanian National Opera of Iaşi in 2011, becoming the youngest ever Principal Conductor in Romania. In 2015 he was named Principal Conductor of the National Romanian Opera House of Cluj-Napoca. In the 2022/23 season, Gabriel Bebeşelea will lead a new production of the opera “Manon Lescaut” at the Slovenian National Theater Maribor.
Gabriel Bebeșelea is known to devote himself to researching and rediscovering music and he is responsible for uncovering several long forgotten or neglected musical masterpieces. In 2017, to bring such music to light, he founded the ensemble Musica Ricercata - an international artistic collective dedicated to the historically informed performance of music spanning from the baroque to modern eras, with an emphasis on early music.
In 2011 he was awarded a scholarship consisting of an internship at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, where he had the possibility to assist at the rehearsals and concerts of some of the most representative conductors nowadays: Mariss Jansons, Bernard Haitink, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Philippe Herreweghe, David Zinman and Eliahu Inbal.
In 2015, Gabriel Bebeşelea studied with two of the world’s most appreciated conductors: Bernard Haitink at the Lucerne Festival at Easter and with Kurt Masur at the Aurora Classical Festival. Bebeșelea was also mentored by Alberto Zedda at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, where he conducted a new production of “Il Viaggio a Reims” in the summer of 2016.
Born in 1987, Gabriel Bebeşelea is winner of the 1st prize of the “Lovro von Matačić” Conducting Competition (Zagreb 2015) and the 1st prize in the “Jeunesses Musicales” Conducting Competition (Bucharest 2011).
In 2018, Gabriel Bebeşelea obtained his PhD with “summa cum laude” at the National University of Music Bucharest.