Simone Young
The Australian conductor Simone Young is regarded as one of the most distinguished conductors of our time. Since 2022 she has served as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, where she has led, among other projects, a concert performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen. In 2024 she made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival with the tetralogy and returned in summer 2025 for two further cycles.
Following her acclaimed new production of György Kurtág’s Fin de partie at the Vienna State Opera, she will conduct its revival in autumn 2025. She then conducts Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Berlin State Opera, before completing at La Scala in Milan the new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen with Götterdämmerung and a full cycle.
She also makes a strong impact in the symphonic repertoire, conducting the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, as well as leading the National Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on a tour of the United States.
From 2005 to 2015 she was Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and General Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic, where she oversaw a broad repertoire ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Strauss to Hindemith, Britten and Henze, in addition to numerous world and first performances. Earlier positions include her tenure as Chief Conductor (1998–2002) of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic Director (2001–2003) of Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne.
From the outset of her career, Simone Young established herself internationally as a leading Wagner and Strauss conductor. She has conducted complete Ring cycles at the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin State Opera and in a new production at the Hamburg State Opera. Engagements have taken her to many of the world’s foremost opera houses, including the Vienna State Opera (debut 1993), the Paris Opéra, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Berlin State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, Zurich Opera, and in 2023 for the first time to La Scala in Milan with a new production of Peter Grimes.
In addition to her extensive operatic career, she is also in high demand on the concert platform. She has appeared with orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Washington Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Orchestre de Paris, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestre National de France, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, and numerous Australian orchestras.
For her artistic achievements Simone Young has received many honors: she holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, is a Member of the Order of Australia, a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France, and a recipient of both the Goethe Medal and the Brahms Prize of Schleswig-Holstein. In April 2022 she was named an Honorary Member of the Vienna State Opera. Numerous CD and DVD recordings document her impressive artistic work.