Olivier Thouin dreamed of becoming a violinist for as long as he can remember. At age 8 or 9, he began practising tirelessly to fulfill his dream. He studied in Joliette with Hratchia Sevadjian from 1981 to 1987, then in Montreal with Raymond Dessaints and Sonia Jelinkova from 1987 to 1995. He pursued his training with Ivan Straus in Prague and Igor Ozim in Bern. His fondest musical memories date back to his years as a student, when he played Schumann’s Quintet with Isidore Cohen, and to his performance of Brahms’ First Symphony as Concertmaster with the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra at the Berliner Philharmonie. His first time playing with the OSM musicians was in 1997 and a few years later, in 2001 and 2004, he performed with the Orchestra as a soloist. He officially joined the Orchestra in 2008. That same year, during the highly acclaimed Automne Messiaen in Montreal, he was deeply moved by the intensity with which Maestro Nagano directed Messiaen’s epic opera Saint François d’Assise, a work whose total performance time stands at more than 5 hours!