Morlot made his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut this season. Last summer he conducted at the Tanglewood Music Center's Festival of Contemporary Music and collaborated with soprano Jessye Norman at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Morlot has been assistant conductor of the BSO since 2004, and was the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship Conductor at Tanglewood in 2001.

Trained as a violinist, Morlot studied conducting with the late Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School in Hancock, Maine. He later studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Colin Davis, and at the Royal College of Music as the recipient of the Norman del Mar Conducting Fellowship.