Stéphane Denève is Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Brussels Philharmonic, and recently concluded his six-year tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra. He is also Director of the Brussels Philharmonic’s Centre for Future Orchestral Repertoire (CffOR). He previously served as Chief Conductor of Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Recognised internationally for the quality of his performances and programming, he regularly appears at major concert venues with the world’s greatest orchestras and soloists. He has a special affinity for the music of his native France, and is an advocate for 21st-century music.
Recent and upcoming engagements include appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, DSO Berlin, NHK Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. In 2020 he conducted the Nobel Prize Concert with the Stockholm Philharmonic. In North America he made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2012 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and regularly conducts The Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and Toronto Symphony. He is also a popular guest at many of the US summer music festivals, including Bravo! Vail, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the Hollywood Bowl, Blossom Music Festival, Festival Napa Valley, and the Grand Teton Music Festival.
In the field of opera, Stéphane Denève led a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Netherlands Opera at the 2019 Holland Festival. Elsewhere, he has led productions at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne Festival, La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Saito Kinen Festival, Gran Teatro del Liceu, La Monnaie, and the Opéra National de Paris.
A graduate and prize-winner of the Paris Conservatoire, Stéphane Denève worked closely in his early career with Sir Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre and Seiji Ozawa. A gifted communicator and educator, he is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians and listeners, and has worked regularly with young people in programmes such as those of the Tanglewood Music Center, New World Symphony, the Colburn School, the European Union Youth Orchestra, and the Music Academy of the West.