Simone Young
Simone Young is considered one of the most important conductors of our time. After completing her musical studies in her native Sydney, Ms. Young began her career on the podium in Germany. This launched her international career, which has taken her to nearly all the most important opera houses and symphony orchestras around the world. In December 2019, the Sydney Symphony announced the appointment of Young as its next chief conductor, effective in 2022.
As a guest conductor this season she leads productions at the Berlin State Opera (Verdi Gala, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Der Rosenkavalier), the Vienna State Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Das verratene Meer) and the Bavarian State Opera (Tannhäuser). Alongside her work in Sydney this season, Ms. Young will guest conduct such orchestras as the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Chicago Symphony, Orchestre Metropolitan de Montreal, DSO Berlin, and Orchestre National de France.
During her tenure in Hamburg, Ms. Young dedicated herself nearly exclusively to that house, conducting numerous premieres and a diverse repertoire with performance of such wide-ranging composers as Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Strauss, Hindemith, Britten and Henze. This period was further distinguished by many World and German Premieres, as Ms. Young brought contemporary music to the fore during her time in Hamburg.
Ms. Young is well known as a Wagner and Strauss specialist, a reputation she developed early in her career when she conducted multiple complete cycles of Wagner’s “Ring” at the Vienna State Opera and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, as well as his Walküre and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg along with Strauss’ Elektra, Salome, Die Frau Ohne Schatten and Ariadne auf Naxos, and also with a new production of Hans Pfitzner’s Palestrina at the Bavarian State Opera. Beyond her numerous performances of Wagner’s and Strauss’ operas on Vienna’s famed Ringstrasse, Ms. Young’s long relationship with the Vienna State Opera, which began with her debut in 1993, includes the widely acclaimed rediscovery of Fromental Halevy’s La Juive in 1999, along with many of the most famous works of the Italian operatic repertoire. After her responsibilities in Hamburg kept her away for several years, she returned to the the Vienna State Opera in the 2011/12 season with a celebrated revival of of Strauss’s Daphne, and she remains a regular feature of that house’s programming to this day. Outside of Vienna, Ms. Young has appeared as a guest conductor at such world-class opera houses as Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and she is a regular guest at the major opera houses in Munich, Berlin, Dresden and Zurich.