At home in a multifaceted repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary music, Basque conductor Iñaki Encina Oyón has made a name for himself above all in the French opera scene. After initial training as a pianist in Vitoria-Gasteiz and in the graduate studio of Thérèse Dussaut at the Toulouse Conservatoire, he studied conducting at Musikene with Jorma Panula and Enrique García Asensio. 2005 he was the first Spaniard to enter the renowned training programme “Atelier Lyrique” of the Paris Opera.

He participated as pianist and assistant in numerous opera productions at the Paris Opera (Idomeneo, Hippolyte et Aricie) including premieres of contemporary operas by Xavier Dayer, Kaija Saariaho and Philippe Fénelon and also conducted productions at the Atelier Lyrique (La Finta Giardinera, L’Isola Disabitata). 2011 saw his conducting debut at Palais Garnier in a concert of contemporary music with musicians from the orchestra of the Paris Opera. He has since worked at the opera houses in Lille, Dijon, Rouen, Tours and Rennes, at the Chamber Opera of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and conducted the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra in Japan.

Aside from the large lyric repertoire – working, among other things, as assistant at the Teatro Real in Madrid (Iphigénie en Tauride, Norma, Carmen) and at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia (Turandot) – Iñaki Encina Oyón has displayed a special interest in unknown and neglected repertoire. Thus he conducted productions of Abu Hassan by Weber, Zanetto by Mascagni, The Consul by Menotti, Vanessa by Barber, and with Ensemble Diderot, Falstaff by Salieri and Athalia by Handel. Iñaki Encina Oyón is Principal Guest Conductor of the Chamber Choir of Europe. Since 2016, Iñaki Encina Oyón has been musical director of the International Baroque Academy of the Festival du Périgord Noir, where he focusses on the large oratorio repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries by Stradella, Handel, Telemann, Bach and Hasse.

Even if conducting represents his main occupation, Iñaki Encina Oyón has never lost sight of the piano and cultivates the Spanish, German, and French art song repertoires with several selected singers. Recitals have taken him to renowned series such as those in Paris’s Auditorium du Louvre, the Amphitheatre of the Bastille, the Lille Opera, the Teatro Arriaga of Bilbao, and the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid.