Career
Simone Young was Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra from August 2005 to the end of the 2014/2015 season, where she conducted a wide range of operas including works by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Strauss, Hindemith, Britten and Henze in new productions and repertoire performances, among them world premieres and several German premieres. Simone Young positioned herself on an international level as a Wagner and Strauss specialist: She took over the musical direction of several cycles of the Ring des Nibelungen at the Wiener Staatsoper, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and the Hamburger Staatsoper. At the Bayerische Staatsoper she conducted Elektra, Salome, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Meistersinger von Nürnbergand a new production of Palestrina, among others. At the Wiener Staatsoper, where she made her remarkable debut in 1993, she conducted a wide repertoire including the main works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, the worldwide appreciated rediscovery of the new production of Halévy’s La Juive and numerous works of the Italian repertoire. After a longer period of absence from the Wiener Staatsoper, she returned during the 2011/2012 season with a celebrated revival of Strauss’ Daphne and will be a regular guest conductor in the years to come. Simone Young, born in Sydney, has been conducting in all leading opera houses throughout the world, including the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In her first season as freelance conductor, Simone Young will give guest performances i.a. at the state operas in Munich, Berlin, Vienna and Dresden.
In addition to her extensive opera activities Simone Young is also very successful on the concert stage. She has worked with all leading orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1999 to 2002 Simone Young was Music Director of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; from January 2001 to December 2003 she was Artistic Director and Music Director of the Australian Opera in Sydney and Melbourne. From summer 2007 until 2012 she was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Lisbon Gulbenkian Orchestra. This season Simone Young will be working with orchestras like the Wiener Symphoniker, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg and various orchestras in Australia.
Discography
Numerous CD recordings of Simone Young’s work are available. Oehms Classics has released recordings from the Hamburger Staatsoper, such as Mathis der Mahler and Der Ring des Nibelungen, as well as several recordings with the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, including all Bruckner symphonies in the original version, all Johannes Brahms’ Symphonies and Mahler’s Second and Sixth Symphonies. Other recordings are i.a. La Juive (Vienna) on DVD, Palestrina (Munich), Poulenc’s Le Dialogue des Carmelites (Hamburg) and Reimann’s Lear (Hamburg).
Awards
Simone Young has received numerous awards and honours. She holds an honorary doctor of the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne. She is Professor at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg, winner of the Order “Member of the Order of Australia”, “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” and the Goethe Medal. In her first opera season in Hamburg, she was honoured with the title of “Conductor of the Year”; moreover she received the Brahms Prize of Schleswig-Holstein.