Alain Lombard

Alain Lombard (born 4 October 1940) is a French conductor.

Born in Paris, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, earning an appointment at the Opéra National de Lyon in 1961, where he would soon become principal conductor. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1967, conducting Gounod's "Faust". In 1968 he traveled with the New York Philharmonic as Associate Tour Conductor. In Venice Leonard Bernstein decided to give Lombard a chance to conduct. He led the orchestra in William Schuman Symphony #3, setting off world wide speculation that Bernstein was ill.Since then, he has held full-time positions with the Greater Miami Symphony Orchestra, the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Paris Opéra, the Opéra-Comique, the Bordeaux Opéra, the Bordeaux-Aquitaine Orchestra, and most recently, he was appointed director of the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux in 1990.

Alain Lombard had been the first conductor of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland from 1999 until 2008.