After starting his musical studies in his native city of
Besançon, he furthered them at the
Conservatoire de Paris where he won three
first prizes in 1959. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik in
Freiburg im Breisgau, then at the
Juilliard School in New York from which he graduated. He was then a concert flutist and won several international competitions: Geneva, Munich, Montreux. From 1960 to 1968, he pursued a career as a
soloist which took him to Switzerland, Germany, Austria before joining the
Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra where he met
Paul Paray. The latter, discovering the musician's gifts as a conductor, encouraged him to take part in international competitions for young conductors. Winner of the 1968 edition of the
Besançon International Music Festival and gold medal at the prestigious 1970 New York
Mitropoulos competition, Bender was hired as chief assistant at the
New York Philharmonic where he worked under the successive directions of
Leonard Bernstein and
Pierre Boulez. Since then, Bender has conducted many Western orchestras, including the
American Symphony Orchestra of New York, the
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande of Geneva and Lausanne, those of Francfort and
Baden-Baden, the
Hessischer Rundfunk Orchestra, the orchestras of
The Hague,
Rotterdam,
Amsterdam, the
New York Philharmonic, the
Houston Symphony, the
Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, the
NHK Symphony Orchestra and
Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the
Orchestre National de France, the
Orchestre de Paris, the Ensemble instrumental de Paris. At the head of the Orchestra of the
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, he has conducted, a series of concerts in India that brought him in particular to Bombay, New Delhi, and
Chennai... He is also regularly invited to the United States where he conducts various orchestras and participates in many festivals. Bender regularly conducts Spanish orchestras, including the
Spanish National Orchestra. With the Orchestre régional de Cannes-Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Bender went to Japan, Morocco in the United States, Germany, Austria, Brazil and China for major tours that have taken him to New York, Washington, Tokyo, Osaka, São Paulo, Berlin and Vienna, Shanghai and Beijing. On November 4, 2007, as part of the ''C'est pas classique'' event, he conducted the Orchestre de Cannes for the Première in France of
Paul McCartney's
Oratorio Ecce Cor Meum, composed in 2001 On April 14, 2013, he conducted the final concert of the Cannes Orcpaca season, and won a triumph at the Théâtre Croisette in Cannes, for this performance shortly before his retirement with Bach's
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, Mozart's
Piano Concerto No. 20 and schumann's
Symphony No. 1. On the following 29 September, he conducted the Orcpaca, for a farewell concert at the Théâtre Debussy of the
Palais des Festivals de Cannes, where he invited prestigious soloists who had already played for a long time under his baton: violinist
Olivier Charlier, performing Beethoven's
Violin Concerto, and clarinetist Michel Lethiec in Gershwin's
Porgy and Bess. En finale, la salle lui rend une très longue ovation debout et, au cours d'une cérémonie amicale lui suivant, le député maire de Cannes,
Bernard Brochand, lui remet la médaille d'Or de la ville de Cannes. == Training and social mission ==