Simone Young

Conductor Simone Young has won recognition for her work in both opera, where she was the first woman to conduct at several major houses, and orchestral music. She gained high visibility as chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the mid-2020s. Young was born in Sydney on March 2, 1961. Unusually, her training took place largely in her home country. For secondary school, Young attended Monte Sant'Angelo Mercy College in Sydney. She went on to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, studying conducting, piano, and composition. In 1983, she landed a job as a répétiteur (a rehearsal pianist and vocal coach) at Opera Australia in Sydney. In 1986, she became both the first woman and the youngest person ever to attain the post of resident conductor there. Young landed assistant conductor posts in Europe, with James Conlon at the Cologne Opera and Daniel Barenboim at Oper Berlin and the Bayreuth Festival; the operas of Wagner would become one of her specialties. In 1993, Young became the first woman to conduct at the Vienna State Opera, and she achieved the same distinction at the Volksoper in Vienna and at Opéra Bastille in Paris. Young also launched a career in orchestral music, serving as principal conductor of the Bergen Symphony in Norway from 1998 to 2002. In 2000, she conducted the Sydney Symphony at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games, and that same year, she made her recording debut on the Melba label, leading the State Orchestra of Victoria on the album Seduction: Songs by Richard Strauss by tenor Steve Davislim. From 2001 to 2003, Young was the chief conductor at Opera Australia. She departed after accusations that she had favored overly expensive productions. Undaunted, Young became the general director at the Hamburg State Opera and chief conductor of the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany (a dual appointment) in 2005. In Hamburg, she conducted all ten of Wagner's operas in a 2013 festival, Wagner-Wahn ("Wagner Insanity"), that marked the composer's bicentennial. Leaving Hamburg in 2015, she remained active as a recording artist on the Oehms Classics label; her complete set of Brahms symphonies with the Hamburg Philharmonic appeared on that label in 2017, and she made several recordings of Bruckner symphonies with that group. Having conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra many times as a guest, Young became the principal conductor of that group in 2022; her appointment there has been renewed at least through 2026. ~ James Manheim, Rovi