Biography

SIMONE YOUNG, conductor

The Australian conductor Simone Young is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of our time. Since 2022, she has served as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, where she is leading, among other projects, a concert performance cycle of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen.

In the 2026/27 season, she returns to the Opéra national de Paris to conduct Katja Kabanova. At the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, she conducts Nabucco, while at the Vienna State Opera she leads performances of Lulu and Parsifal. In the summer of 2027, she returns to the Bayreuth Festival to conduct Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Simone Young also continues to make a major impact on the international concert stage and appears with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre National de Lyon, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, and the Orchestre National de France.
From 2005 to 2015, Simone Young served as Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and General Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra. In this dual role, she oversaw an exceptionally broad repertoire, ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Strauss to Hindemith, Britten and Henze, while also presenting numerous world and national premieres. Prior to this, she was Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra from 1998 to 2002, and Artistic Director of Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne from 2001 to 2003.

Early in her career, Simone Young established herself internationally as one of the foremost interpreters of the works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. She has conducted several complete cycles of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Vienna State Opera, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, and the Bayreuth Festival, as well as in a new production at the Hamburg State Opera, and most recently at Teatro alla Scala during the 2025/26 season.

Guest engagements have taken her to many of the world’s leading opera houses, including the Vienna State Opera, Opéra national de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Bavarian State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, the Zurich Opera House, and Teatro alla Scala.

On the concert platform, Simone Young has long been one of the world’s most sought-after conductors. She regularly appears with leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.), Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Filarmonica della Scala, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, as well as the leading orchestras of Australia.

Awards

For her outstanding artistic achievements, Simone Young has received numerous international honours. She holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne, is a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of 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.

2026/27