Fayçal Karoui (born 1971), who is of north african background (Tunisian), was New York City Ballet's music director from December 2006, to the spring of 2012. the fifth since its inception in 1948. He won a prize at the 1991 Besançon International Young Conductors Competition and first prize in conducting at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris in 1997. The Aïda scholarship that year gave him the chance to work under Michel Plasson and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and the following June he was appointed Plasson’s assistant.