Hervé Boissière is a producer, broadcaster, and promoter of music, mainly classical, for over 30 years.
He began his career as a stage manager at the Marionnettes de Bourgogne in Beaune, where he was born on September 12, 1966. There he discovered the magic of live performance, the artists, the backstage, the tours, the audiences. His choice was made and studies in Art History and Political Science were put aside to devote himself fully to this passion for music.
In 1987, he joined the press department of the Opera de Lyon and every evening attended shows created in particular by John Eliot Gardiner, Kent Nagano, Georges Lavaudant and Maguy Marin.
During recordings sessions at the Lyon Opera, Hervé Boissière met Michel Garcin who suggested that in 1989 he join the prestigious Erato Disques label in Paris. New decisive artistic encounters appear: Scott Ross, Olivier Messiaen, Daniel Barenboim, Hélène Grimaud, William Christie… It is also the opportunity to conceive the creation of Warner Classics France which he developed until 1998. In the meantime, hundreds of recordings, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Maxim Vengerov among others, were released. The relaunch of the Das Alte Werk collection at Teldec, the development in Europe of the Nonesuch label, the second album of the Three Tenors in Los Angeles or the creative partnerships with Claude Nobs and the Montreux Jazz Festival illustrate the richness of his collaboration with Warner.
In 1998, Hervé Boissière created naïve classique with Patrick Zelnik, a new independent label, “une maison d’artistes”, which brought together eclectic and creative musicians, such as Jordi Savall, Marianne Faithfull, Accentus, Fazil Say, Seu Jorge, Pascal Dusapin, Grigory Sokolov… or the Vivaldi Edition which will remain an unrivaled discographic adventure to this day. He left his position of CEO of naïve in 2006 to found medici.tv.
In July 2007, Hervé Boissière brought together a team to broadcast 29 concerts live from the Verbier Festival. With real artistic, public, and technological success, the experience was perpetuated on May 1, 2008, with the Berliner Philharmoniker live from Moscow, thus marking the official launch of the medici.tv platform, which will quickly become the world leader in Classical music video streaming. In 2010, he joined forces with Pâris Mouratoglou to accelerate the growth of the platform.
The impact of medici.tv is then understood across the entire music industry with numerous world premieres (Written on Skin by George Benjamin for example), new experiences for audiences live at the Tchaikovsky Competition, Carnegie Hall or during prestigious events such as the New Year’s concert with the Wiener Philharmoniker. Hervé Boissière attaches particular importance to long-term partnerships as evidenced by loyal relationships with artists like Yuja Wang, Joyce DiDonato, Klaus Mäkelä or institutions like the Salzburg Festival and partners like Rolex, to name just a few. Since its inception, medici has broadcast more than 3,500 live events from 5 continents and offers online the world’s largest catalog of concerts, operas, ballets, master classes, archives, documentaries.
In 2020, Hervé Boissière was instrumental in the creation of a division dedicated to classical music within the Les Échos/LVMH Group, with the establishment of a new joint venture around medici.tv. On this occasion, he took over as executive director of the Mezzo channel and then organized the integration of EuroArts, a production company based in Berlin. Numerous synergies are then developed. Hervé Boissière also managed an ambitious policy of acquisition of audiovisual catalogs, including the documentary work of Bruno Monsaingeon.
Hervé Boissière has been awarded “Chevalier des Arts et Lettres” from the French Ministry of Culture. He is regularly invited as an expert in professional bodies (CNC, European Commission…) and several of his productions have been recognized by international prizes (Gramophone Awards, Victoires de la Musique…).
On April 15, 2024, Hervé Boissière will serve as Co-CEO of the Verbier Festival, alongside Martin T:son Engstroem, founder of the event internationally known since 30 years for its artistic and educational excellence.
Martin T:son Engstroem was born in Stockholm in 1953 where he received his schooling and a degree in Music History from the University of Stockholm. His father was the sculptor Torolf Engström and mother Inge Rosenfeld-Engström.
He began early his career as organizer of concerts by creating his own series of Sunday afternoon concerts for young Swedish musicians at the National Museum in Stockholm. This series became the leading window for young Swedish talent through the 1970s. Still a teenager he also arranged major concerts in Stockholm for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Antal Dorati and Staffan Scheja.
1972-1973 he worked for one year at the Foreign Division of Ibbs & Tillett artists’ management in London mainly dealing with British artists performing abroad. Here he worked a.o. with John Ogdon, Shura Cherkassky and many UK orchestras.
In 1975, Engstroem moved to Paris to become partner in the artists management company ‘Opéra et Concert’. During the 12 years with the agency, he worked intimately with many major artists such as Karl Böhm, Birgit Nilsson, Jessye Norman, Lucia Popp, Renato Bruson and Leonard Bernstein. His prime interest was to develop new talent and many of the young musicians he represented went on to major careers such as Barbara Hendricks, Neil Shicoff, Han-Na Chang and Giuseppe Sinopoli.
During many years he enjoyed a close collaboration with Herbert von Karajan.
After having moved to Switzerland in 1987 with his wife, soprano Barbara Hendricks and their two children, he worked for a period of time as consultant to EMI France, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and the Paris Opera (co-organizer of the opening of l’Opéra de Paris / Bastille in 1992 with Leonard Bernstein, Michael Tilson Thomas and Robert Wilson). Engstroem was instrumental in the choice of Myung-Whun Chung as Artistic Director of l’Opéra de Bastille.
In 1991 he started to put together what in 1994 became the Verbier Festival & Academy for which he remains the artistic and executive head as Founder & Director. The Verbier Festival has over the years developed into one of the most innovative performing arts communities in Europe. In 2000, Engstroem, together with the Swiss bank UBS developed what became one of the most attractive training orchestras in the world, the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, with James Levine as its Music Director. Charles Dutoit followed as Music Director in 2009 and Valery Gergiev, the present Music Director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra started in 2018.
2005 saw the beginning of the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra which immediately enjoyed a close association with Maxim Vengerov through major tours and a highly successful EMI recording of Mozart Violin Concertos. In 2008 Gabór Takács-Nagy was named Music Director of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra.
Between 1999 and 2003, Engstroem was Vice President of Artists & Repertoire of Deutsche Grammophon (and between 2003 and 2005, Senior Executive Producer & Artists Development). He was directly responsible for the recording projects of many major artists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Pierre Boulez, Claudio Abbado and Maurizio Pollini to name but a few. Among the new artists he signed to DG were Anna Netrebko, Lang Lang, Yundi Li, Hélène Grimaud, Ilya Gringolts, Hilary Hahn and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
He has been a jury member of numerous competitions: in 2005 at the 50th anniversary of the Paganini Competition in Genoa, in 2006 he was invited by Galina Vishnewskaja to be on the jury of her first vocal competition in Moscow. In 2009 Thomas Quasthoff invited him to Berlin as a jury member for the ‘Das Lied’ Competition. In 2009, 2011, 2013 (the last two years he was the President of the Jury) he was a member of the Clara Haskil Competition, and in 2010 member of the jury for the Geneva Competition (voice). In 2014 he was a member of the Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv. Engstroem has had a long-term relationship with the Tchaikovsky Competition; in 2011 he was a member of the violin jury and in 2015 he was a member of the piano jury; in 2019 he chaired the violin jury.
In June 2011, The Nobel Foundation in Lindau induced Martin T:son Engstroem and Bill Gates to their Honorary Senate. The Foundation thereby recognized “their sustained personal commitment to supporting and encouraging young talents by opening the door to future opportunities.”
From 2013 to 2016 he was a Member of the Board of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne and of the Board of Governors of the Glion Institute of Higher Studies. From 2014 to 2017 he was also a Board member of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva.
In April 2015, Engstroem received the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize at a ceremony held at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, in Moscow. Awarded by the Yuri Bashmet Foundation, the recognition is considered to be one of the most prestigious prizes in the field of Russian art. He is the first laureate of the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize who is not a musician.
Engstroem has also worked as Global Advisor on Artistic Planning for IMG Artists and as consultant for Rolex in developing artistic projects in China and India.
Since 2016 he has been a Board Member of the Macao Festival and, in 2018, became Artistic Director both of the Tsinandali Festival in Georgia and of the Riga Jurmala Festival in Latvia.
Engstroem now lives on the shores of Lac Leman in Switzerland with his second wife Blythe Teh-Engstroem and their two daughters.