Born in Sion in 1993, Laurent Zufferey discovered music through the strong presence of various brass bands and marching bands in the surrounding villages.
In 2016, in his first conducting competition, he won third place at the Augsburg International Conductors’ Competition, in front of a panel of experts including Atso Almila (FIN) and Matty Cillissen (NL). This experience was a turning point in his career, as he then decided to pursue professional music studies.
In the same year, he entered the Royal Northern College of Music as a percussionist, where he obtained a Master of Music in Performance with distinction in 2017. In 2018, he was awarded an entrance prize at the same institution for a Master’s degree in the Orchestral Conducting class of Mark Heron and Clark Rundell, a Master’s degree that unfortunately ended in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2021, as soon as the post-Covid reopening took place, he was invited by Paavo Järvi to the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich Academy, where he won the Audience Award at the end of the final concert. A few months later, Teodor Currentzis invited him at the last minute to participate in MusicAeterna’s residency in Lucerne. During the public masterclass, he had the opportunity to conduct Gustav Mahler’s 5th Symphony in the KKL’s White Hall.
In September 2021, he was appointed Music Director and Co-Artistic Director of Valéik, a professional orchestra based in Valais. He held the position of Assistant Conductor with the Basel Sinfonietta (Switzerland) and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège (Belgium), then was appointed assistant with the Orchestre National de Lyon (France), where he will take up his post for two years from September 2023. In September 2022, he made his opera debut as assistant to Pierre Bleuse for Ouverture Opéra’s production of Die Zauberflöte, conducting five performances.
In March 2023, he took part in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. In the same year, the City of Sion awarded him its Cultural Prize.
In December 2023, he was invited to replace conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider just hours before the Orchestre National de Lyon’s concert. The evening’s programme included a world premiere by Bechara El-Khoury and Carl Nielsen’s 4th Symphony. Résonances Lyriques, a review site present that evening, commented on the performance: ” When so many conductors (Rattle, Pappano, Davis…!) dry up the subject matter, Laurent Zufferey defends an exhilarating conception, whose lyricism is never exiled.” The success of this concert earned him a re-invitation for two subscription concerts in June 2025, for a spectacular programme including Respighi’s Feste Romane and Debussy’s Iberia.
Then, in March 2025, Laurent Zufferey made his debut at the Philharmonie de Paris conducting the Orchestre National de Lyon, replacing Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. This milestone moment for the young Swiss conductor will see him conduct a vibrant programme combining Maurice Ravel’s ‘Alborada del gracioso’ and the premiere of Ibrahim Maalouf’s Trumpet Concerto, performed by the composer himself.
During his career as a conductor, Laurent has had the opportunity to collaborate with renowned orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, the Orchestre National de Metz (F), the Orchestre de Picardie (France), the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra (Norway), the Manchester Camerata (UK), the Augsburger Philharmoniker (Germany), the Sinfonietta de Lausanne, the Kammerphilharmonie Graubünden, the Crans-Montana Classics Festival and the Argovia Philharmonic (Switzerland).
