Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1971, François-Xavier Roth, son of organist Daniel Roth, enrolled at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse in Paris in 1999, where he studied music alongside Alain Marion and János Fürst. He was not yet 30 years old when he won 1st Prize in the Donatella Flick International Orchestra Conducting Competition in 2000, before perfecting his skills as assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

In 2015, the French conductor was appointed Generalmusikdirektor in Cologne and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 2017.

A teacher at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse in Paris, where he himself trained, the conductor also works to promote classical music to the general public with "Presto", a programme broadcast on France Télévisions.

Through an oeuvre including many recordings, François-Xavier Roth explores a variety of genres, ranging from lyrical and symphonic pieces to chamber music, from the baroque period to the contemporary creations of Brian Ferneyhough and Philippe Maunoury, including the symphonic poems of German composer Richard Strauss.

Acclaimed by critics, in 2013 his orchestra, Les Siècles, obtained exclusive permission from Boosey & Hawkes, which owns the rights of Stravinsky's work, to perform the Russian composer’s Rite of Spring with instruments from 1913, on the occasion of the work’s centenary.

Since his beginnings in the 2000s as assistant to famous British conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner, then as conductor, from 2010 to 2016, of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Freiburg & Baden-Baden, François-Xavier Roth has continued to engage in many international collaborations: from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, including the London Symphony Orchestra, of which he has been the Principal Guest Director since the 2017-2018 season.

During these prestigious collaborations, the French conductor has performed across the world. In 2017, he toured Asia as head of the Cologne Gürzenich orchestra.