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 Orchestra. He recently concluded terms as principal guest conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra and music director of the Brussels Philharmonic and previously served as chief conductor of Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Recognized internationally for the exceptional quality of his performances and programming, Stéphane Denève 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 a passionate advocate for music of the 21st century.

Stéphane Denève’s recent and upcoming engagements include appearances in Europe with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, 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, Orchestre National de Lyon, Czech Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, DSO Berlin, WDR Cologne, and Rotterdam Philharmonic; and in Asia with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Saito Kinen Orchestra at the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival.

In North America, Stéphane Denève made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra - with whom he has appeared several times both in Boston and at Tanglewood - and he regularly conducts the continent’s leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Toronto Symphony. In 2022, Denève was given the honor of conducting for John Williams’ official 90th Birthday Gala with NSO Washington at the Kennedy Center; he is also a popular guest at many of the US summer music festivals, including the Hollywood Bowl, Bravo! Vail, Blossom Music Festival, Festival Napa Valley, Grand Teton Music Festival, Sun Valley Music Festival, and Music Academy of the West.

Stéphane Denève frequently performs 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, 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 delLiceu, La Monnaie, and Deutsche Oper am Rhein.

As a recording artist, Denève has won critical acclaim for his recordings of the works of Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Franck, and Connesson. He is a triple winner of the Diapason d’Or of the Year, 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 most recent releases include a live recording of Honegger’s Jeanne d’arc au bûcher with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, 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 boxset of his complete Ravel recordings with Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra was released in 2022 by Hänssler Classic.

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, Denève is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians and listeners. In addition to his position with the New World Symphony and his long-standing relationship with the Colburn School in Los Angeles, Denève has worked regularly with young people in programs such as those of the Tanglewood Music Center, European Union Youth Orchestra, and Music Academy of the West. 

For further information, please visit www.stephanedeneve.com

Award-winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet enjoys a prolific recording and international concert career. He regularly works with The Cleveland, NHK Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestras and collaborates with many renowned conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda, Vasily Petrenko, Ludovic Morlot, Edward Gardner, Louis Langrée, and Sir Andrew Davis.  

Orchestral engagements during the 2024/25 season include Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrucken and Royal Northern Sinfonia amongst others. He continues his relationship with the Manchester Camerata performing and recording the final instalment of the Mozart concertos which will include K365 and K242 for two and three pianos respectively, conducted by Gábor Takács-Nagy. Jean-Efflam will tour to New Zealand and Australia appearing with the Auckland Philharmonic and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras as well as recitals in Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra.

Elsewhere in recital, Bavouzet visits Wigmore Hall in November for the final instalment in the 12-concert series entitled Tour de Debussy. He returns to Wigmore Hall in May, with a concert consisting of a unique programme showcasing every solo piano work written by Maurice Ravel. He will also be performing this programme on tour in Italy and the United States. Other notable recitals include Shanghai Symphony Hall and Prague Piano Festival.  

Bavouzet’s previous notable performances include Carnegie Hall with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonie de Paris with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, a BBC Proms appearance with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Nicholas Collon and a successful eight-concert tour of China with Philharmonia and Lan Shui. He has recently appeared with Budapest Festival Orchestra, Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, play-directed a three concerto programme with Seattle Symphony Orchestra and toured the Baltics with Manchester Camerata. Bavouzet is a frequent guest of Verbier Festival. In summer 2023, Bavouzet’s recital tour took him from International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York, Bravo! Vail Festival and Aspen, across the Atlantic to Finland’s Mänttä Music Festival and St Ursanne in Switzerland.  

Bavouzet records exclusively for Chandos. His most recent release, A Musical Tribute to Pierre Sancan with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Yan Pascal Tortelier, won the Gramophone Editor’s Choice and Diapason d’Or awards. His complete Haydn Piano Sonatas series has been named a modern benchmark by Gramophone and The Beethoven Connection received numerous accolades from magazines including the New York Times, BBC Music Magazine and Choc-Classica. Ongoing cycles include the complete Mozart Piano Concertos with Manchester Camerata and Gábor Takács-Nagy, the fourth volume of which was nominated for a Gramophone Award in 2020. In September of the same year, the complete Beethoven Concertos were released with Swedish Chamber Orchestra play-directed by Bavouzet.  

Other recordings include Bartók’s Piano Concerti and the complete Prokofiev Piano Concerti with BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda – the latter won the Concerto category of the 2014 Gramophone Awards. Under Yan-Pascal Tortelier, he recorded Stravinsky’s Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra with Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and the Ravel Piano concerti with BBC Symphony Orchestra which won both a Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine award. Bavouzet’s recordings have also garnered Diapason d’Or and Choc de l’Année awards.

 Bavouzet has worked closely with Sir Georg Solti, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Zoltan Kocsis, György Kurtág, Maurice Ohana, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Bruno Mantovani and Jörg Widmann and is also a champion of lesser-known French music, notably that of Gabriel Pierné and Albéric Magnard. He is the International Chair in Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music and an Advisory Board member of the Pianofest in the Hamptons. In 2012 he was ICMA Artist of the Year and in 2008 he was awarded Beijing’s first ever Elite Prize for his Beethoven complete sonata series.