Stéphane Denève

Stéphane Denève (Tourcoing, 24 November 1971) is a French conductor.

Denève studied at the Conservatoire de Paris. As assistant conductor to Georg Solti at the Orchestre de Paris, to Georges Prêtre at the Opéra nationale de Paris and to Seiji Ozawa at the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto in 1998, he gained experience with both symphony orchestras and opera.

Denève began his first music directorship in September 2005 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), which he conducted in its first season at the Proms in 2006 in London and at their first performance in France. His contract ended after the 2011-2012 season. Denève and the RSNO made recordings for the Naxos and Chandos labels of works by Albert Roussel and Guillaume Connesson.

In October 2009, Denève stepped in for Michel Plasson as guest conductor of the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, where he was appointed chief conductor in March 2010 from the 2011-2012 season onwards. He remained under contract until the end of the 2015-2016 season, when RSO Stuttgart merged with the SWR Symphonieorchester.

In November 2013, Denève was a guest conductor at Brussels Philharmonic for the first time, which then announced his appointment as music director in June 2015, effective from the 2015-2016 season. A new initiative during Stéphane Denève's tenure is the establishment of the Centre for Future Orchestral Repertoire, a platform that collects symphonic music from 2000 onwards.