Omar El Jamali

Morocco, 34 y.o.
El-Jamali-Omar
For me, conducting is my way of engaging with the world: by serving the score, the musicians, and the communities that music can bring together. It means helping a composer’s vision become a living experience, while bringing clarity, discipline, generosity, and honesty to the people in front of me — and demanding the same from myself. As a Moroccan and African conductor, I also see the podium as a place from which I can help widen the circle of classical music: who it reaches, who it represents, and the stories it still has to tell.

Omar El Jamali

Morocco, 34 y.o.

Omar studied Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music under Claudio Ragazzi and Eric Reasoner, before pursuing conducting studies at l’École Normale de Musique de Paris and La Schola Cantorum de Paris. He is currently enrolled in an Executive Master in Communication at Sciences Po Paris in collaboration with McGill University.

Omar gained international recognition as a finalist and prizewinner at the Antal Doráti Conducting Competition in Hungary, the BMI Bucharest International Conducting Competition and the Erich Bergel International Conducting Competition in Romania.

In 2024, he reached the quarter-finals of the Malko Competition in Denmark. Following this achievement, he was invited to assist Cristian Măcelaru at the Orchestre National de France. The same year, he was selected as a Conducting Fellow at both the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest.

He has worked as Assistant Conductor with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the George Enescu Philharmonic, assisting conductors including James Gaffigan, Daniel Harding and Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

He is regularly invited by the George Enescu Festival, the Mihail Jora Philharmonic Orchestra of Bacău, Filarmonica Botoșani, MÁV Szimfonikus Budapest and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc.
In 2026, he makes his debut with the Orchestre National d’Avignon.

Alongside his conducting career, he is General Director and co-founder of the Académie de Direction de Neuilly et Grand Paris, a conducting academy based in Paris.

Selected programme

Preliminary Round
Beethoven: Coriolan Overture opus 62

Semi-Finals
Wagner: Lohengrin Prelude to Act III

Mozart: The Magic Flute
Sprecher and Tamino, Act I, Scene 11, Recitative for Sprecher and tenor, without aria

Tchaikovsky: Symphony n°6 in B minor opus 74, “Pathetique”, (1st movement)

Finals
Evgeny Svetlanov: Symphony, Largo (3rd movement) 

Antonino Abate: Il Re D’Ithaca (The King of Ithaca), commissioned for the Competition (The score is provided to the finalists one and a half hour before the performance)

One of the following works chosen by the candidate: 

  • Dvorák: Symphony n°7 opus 70
  • Elgar: Enigma Variations opus 36
  • Sibelius: Symphony n°2 in D major opus 43