Stéphane Denève is Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic . He previously served as Principal Guest Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra, Music Director of the Brussels Philharmonic, Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. 

A graduate and prize-winner of the Paris Conservatoire, Denève worked closely in his early career with Sir Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre, and Seiji Ozawa. Passionate about the future of the art-form and a gifted communicator, he is committed to inspiring the next generation of performers and listeners through commissioning, digital and new media initiatives, and innovative approaches to concert presentation. As an educator, he leads the orchestral performance programme at the New World Symphony, and his work with young people has also included visits to the Colburn School in Los Angeles, Tanglewood Music Center, the European Union Youth Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, the Curtis Institute, and Music Academy of the West. 

Recent European engagements have included appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, DSO Berlin, Czech Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony at the BBC Proms, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (with whom he was invited to conduct the 2020 Nobel Prize concert), Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Rotterdam Philharmonic.  

In North America, Stéphane Denève made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and subsequently conducted the annual gala with The Philadelphia Orchestra, John Williams and Yo-Yo Ma. He is a regular guest with the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Atlanta Symphony and Toronto Symphony. In 2022, Denève was honoured with an invitation to lead the official 90th Birthday Gala for John Williams at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra. He has also been a frequent visitor to many of the US summer music festivals, including the Hollywood Bowl, Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood, Blossom Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Festival Napa Valley, Grand Teton Music Festival, Sun Valley Music Festival, and Music Academy of the West.  

Elsewhere in recent years he has performed with the NHK Symphony, Sydney Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, São Paulo Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Saito Kinen Orchestra, with whom he was invited to conduct the 125th anniversary gala for Deutsche Grammophon at Suntory Hall alongside John Williams. 

Stéphane Denève frequently collaborates with many of the world’s leading solo artists, including Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Nicola Benedetti, Yefim Bronfman, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Sasha Cooke, James Ehnes, Kirill Gerstein, Hélène Grimaud, Augustin Hadelich, Hilary Hahn, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Leonidas Kavakos, Lang Lang, Olivier Latry, Isabel Leonard, Paul Lewis, Nikolai Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Kelley O’Connor, Víkingur Ólafsson, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Golda Schultz, Gil Shaham, Akiko Suwanai, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Davóne Tines, and Frank Peter Zimmermann. He also treasures the memory of Nicholas Angelich and Lars Vogt, two exceptional artists with whom he enjoyed a close musical friendship over many years. 

In the field of opera, Stéphane Denève has led productions at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Glyndebourne Festival, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Netherlands Opera (including a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for the Holland Festival), Saito Kinen Festival, Gran Teatre del Liceu, La Monnaie, and Deutsche Oper am Rhein. 

As a recording artist, Denève has won critical acclaim for his discography–in particular the works of Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Franck, and Connesson. He is a triple winner of the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, has been shortlisted for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year Award, and has won the prize for symphonic music at the International Classical Music Awards. His latest release – Concerto for Orchestra, Silent Night Elegy & Virelai – was recorded with the St. Louis Symphony and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Kevin Puts. Other recent recording projects have included Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium and John Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 1 with James Ehnes and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; a live recording of Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; an album of John Williams’ film music recorded for Deutsche Grammophon; and two discs of the works of Guillaume Connesson with the Brussels Philharmonic (the first of which was awarded the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, Caecilia Award, and Classica Magazine’s CHOC of the Year). A box-set of his complete Ravel recordings with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra was released in 2022 by Hänssler Classic. 

Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize. Emanuel Ax was recently named the 2026 Musical America Artist of the Year.  

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of his first appearance with the orchestra, the 2025-26 season begins with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Carnegie Hall on October 31. Fall also includes an Asian tour that will take him to Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong. Following the world premiere at Tanglewood in summer 2025, the concerto written for him by John Williams will have its Boston Symphony subscription debut in January with the NY premiere one month later with New York Philharmonic. As a guest artist he will return to orchestras in Dallas, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Madison, Naples and New Jersey. In recital he can be heard in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Santa Barbara, Des Moines, Cedar Falls, Schenectady and Princeton. An extensive European tour will include concerts in Munich, Prague, Berlin, Rome and Torino.  

Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first three discs have been released. He has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of GRAMMY-winning recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004-05 season Mr. Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano). 

Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit EmanuelAx.com. 

PLEASE NOTE: ALL PROGRAM BIOGRAPHIES MUST INCLUDE REFERENCE TO MR. AX’S EXCLUSIVE RECORDING CONTRACT WITH SONY CLASSICAL