Nicolette Fraillon
Nicolette Ella Fraillon is an Australian conductor, who has been Chief Conductor of The Australian Ballet since 2003. She is the world's only woman music director of a ballet company.Career
Fraillon grew up in Melbourne, a child of immigrant parents of Huguenot-Sicilian and Austrian Jewish origins. Her family is musical: both grandfathers were cellists, and her brother Guillaume was principal bass player with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
She started violin and piano studies as a child; her teachers included Brian Buggy and Ada Corder. She played with the Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Youth Orchestra for some time.
As an adult she studied viola under Chris Martin at the University of Melbourne. She studied conducting at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, from 1984, and later in Hanover, Germany. Her professional conducting debut was with the Nederlands Dans Theater, when she deputised for another conductor who had fallen ill. In the Netherlands, she also worked on a production of Les Misérables, both playing viola in the orchestra and working as second conductor. Later she was appointed Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Dutch National Ballet.
In the Netherlands she also met her fourth husband, Aernoot Kervert, an employee of the Hilversum Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Her three earlier marriages ended in divorce. She has two sons.
In 1995 she was engaged by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, becoming the first Australian woman to conduct an Australian symphony orchestra. She later conducted the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.
In October 1997 Fraillon was appointed Director of the Canberra School of Music, effective from June 1998.
In 1998 she commenced at the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. In 2003 she was appointed Chief Conductor of The Australian Ballet. She was their first woman conductor, and is currently the world's only woman music director of a ballet company.
