Aliisa Neige Barrière is a French-Finnish conductor with a broad repertoire ranging from early to contemporary music, who puts special emphasis on carefully curated programs around engaging dramaturgies and bringing previously silenced voices to the forefront. Her passion for making new voices heard has also led her to actively commission new works. In her still young career, Barrière has already collaborated with numerous orchestras and ensembles including Sinfonia Lahti, Avanti!, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Oulu Sinfonia, Tampere Philharmonic, BIT20 and the Swedish Radio Orchestra, to name a few.
In 2023, Barrière graduated from the Sibelius Academy orchestral conducting class, where she studied under the tutelage of Sakari Oramo. Previously, she was a student of Jorma Panula at the Panula Academy. She has since regularly worked as an assistant to conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Susanna Mälkki, Sakari Oramo and Pekka Kuusisto.
In 2021-2023 she served as the assistant conductor to Dalia Stasevska with Sinfonia Lahti and held the position of Young Conductor in Residence with the Århus Sinfonietta. In 2023, she was awarded the Young Artist Award at the Mikkeli Festival.
Originally a violinist, Barrière honed her leadership skills as a guest concertmaster or section leader in ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Secession Orchestra, Barokksolistene and the Oslo Sinfonietta. Her violin studies took her from Paris, as a student of Suzanne Gessner and Richard Schmoucler, to New York, where she studied with Renee Jolles, Laurie Smukler and Lewis Kaplan. She then moved to Oslo where she finished her studies as a student of Peter Herresthal and Isabelle van Keulen.
She also studied baroque violin under Nancy Wilson in New York and Bjarte Eike and Catherine Martin in Oslo.
In the 2023–2024 season, Barrière will make her debut at the Ojai Festival, leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and make her return to the Mikkeli Festival with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She will also be the Artist-in-Residence of the Turku Music Festival, curating a series of concerts ranging from chamber music to orchestral music around the concept of uchrony or alternate history.