Grégoire Pont

An exceptional artistic talent, Grégoire Pont attended the Animation Workshop in Paris from the tender age of eight, where he studied Norman McLaren’s techniques of animation dynamics.

Pont has always been passionate about making classical music more popular and accessible to both children and adults by means of animation. He developed a new performance concept called Cinesthetics, where he draws and animates live to a musical performance.

Recent Cinesthetic performances include Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye at the London Royal Festival Hall, Paris Philharmonie and Frankfurt Alte Oper; Schönberg’s Gurrelieder and Elgar’s Enigma Variations in Gothenburg; Debussy’s La mer at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Sauguet’s Les Forains with Orchestre National de Lille and Saint-Saens’ Le carnival des animaux with Les Siècles.

Pont has received acclaim for bringing his innovative animation techniques to the operatic repertoire. Together with British director James Bonas, he conceived productions at Opéra de Lyon of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges and L’heure espagnole. Their unique approach has led to these productions being presented by houses around the world, including Dresden Opera, Opéra de Lille, Royal Opera House Muscat and the San Francisco and Cincinnati symphonies. Most recently they have achieved success with titles including Hans Abrahamsen’s Snow Queen for Opéra National du Rhin, Emma Bovary for National Ballet of Canada and Candide for Welsh National Opera.