Nicolette Fraillon

Fraillon grew up in Melbourne, a child of immigrant parents of Huguenot-Sicilian and Austrian Jewish origins. Her family is musical: both grandfathers were cellists, and her brother Guillaume was principal bass player with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.[1]

She started violin and piano studies as a child; her teachers included Brian Buggy (violin) and Ada Corder (piano).[2][1] She played with the Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Youth Orchestra for some time.[3]

As an adult she studied viola under Chris Martin at the University of Melbourne. She studied conducting at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, from 1984, and later in Hanover, Germany.[4] Her professional conducting debut was with the Nederlands Dans Theater, when she deputised for another conductor who had fallen ill.[2] In the Netherlands, she also worked on a production of Les Misérables, both playing viola in the orchestra and working as second conductor.[2][3] Later she was appointed music director and chief conductor of the Dutch National Ballet.[5]

In the Netherlands she also met her fourth husband, Aernoot Kervert, an employee of the Hilversum Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.[3] Her three earlier marriages ended in divorce.[6]

In 1995 she was engaged by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, becoming the first Australian woman to conduct an Australian symphony orchestra. She later conducted the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.[4]

In October 1997 Fraillon was appointed director of the Canberra School of Music, effective from June 1998.[3] In 1998 she commenced at the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. In 2003 she was appointed chief conductor of The Australian Ballet.[4][5] She was their first woman conductor, and, in 2016, the world's only woman music director of a ballet company.[7] In November 2021, Fraillon announced that she would leave that position in 2022.[8]

Fraillon has two sons.[1]

Fraillon has been married five times,[3][6][9] most recently to First Nations soprano, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon. Cheetham and Fraillon married on 2 January 2023 at their home in Church Point, NSW.[9]