In demand as a guest conductor in many countries, conductor Fabien Gabel spent ten years as music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. He has collaborated with top-notch soloists, including Emanuel Ax and Gidon Kremer.

Gabel was born on September 10, 1975, in Paris. His father was a trumpeter, his mother was a harpist, and he took up the trumpet at age six. Soon, he was taking trumpet lessons at the Conservatoire de Paris (the CNSM), winning a first prize there for trumpet in 1996, and he went on for further work at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe in Germany. Gabel spent the first part of his career as a professional trumpeter, playing in various French orchestras under such conductors as Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Muti, and Bernard Haitink.

Gabel's switch to conducting came about after he took a conducting course with David Zinman at the Aspen Music Festival in 2002 and landed a post as an assistant to Kurt Masur at the Orchestre national de France. He developed quickly as a conductor, winning the Donatella Flick Competition for conductors in 2004. That year, he was named assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, where he remained until 2006. Twice during this period, he conducted the orchestra in concerts at London's Barbican Centre. Gabel worked as an assistant to various prominent conductors, including Zinman, Haitink, and Sir Colin Davis. In 2010, he made his recording debut, conducting the Orchestre national de France as it backed mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux on her album Ne me refuse pas.

In 2012, Gabel became the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, and he added the Orchestre Français des Jeunes to his portfolio in 2017. Gabel has made various recordings, both with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and with several European groups as a guest conductor. In 2021, he left both his permanent posts but has remained in demand as a guest conductor, appearing with, among other groups, the Tonkünstler-Orchester of Vienna, the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Germany, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in England, where he has often appeared. In 2022, Gabel led the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic on the BIS label, backing trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger on his album French Trumpet Concertos. ~ James Manheim, Rovi