Australian-born Simone Young, Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, was General Manager and Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Music Director of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg from 2005-2015, where she conducted repertoire ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Strauss, to Hindemith, Britten and Henze. She is an acknowledged interpreter of the operas of Wagner and Strauss, having conducted several complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival, Vienna Staatsoper, the Staatsoper in Berlin and again, to great acclaim, in Hamburg as part of the ‘Wagner-Wahn’ Festival, during which she conducted the 10 major Wagner operas. Her Hamburg recordings include the Ring cycle, Mathis der Maler (Hindemith), and symphonies of Bruckner, Brahms and Mahler. Her 2012 tour to Brisbane with the Hamburg Opera and Ballet, (Das Rheingold in concert, and Mahler Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”), won her the 2013 Helpmann Award for the Best Individual Classical Music Performance.
Firmly established as one of the world’s leading conductors, 2026 will see Simone Young return to Milan to continue and complete La Scala’s new Ring Cycle, with the premiere of Die Götterdämmerung and the first complete, new Ring cycle, and to the Berlin State Opera for both Lohengrin and Nabucco.
Her return invitations to the great orchestras of the world include the Washington National Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco and Montreal Symphony Orchestras, West German Radio Orchestra Cologne, Bavarian Radio Orchestra Munich, Berlin Radio Symphony, Philharmonia London, BBC Manchester Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Paris and Orchestre National de Lyon. She will also return to ANAM Melbourne to lead the orchestra in a special 30th anniversary Gala concert.
To the Sydney Symphony, Simone Young will return to conduct Mahler’s Song of the Earth, Jean-Yves Thibaudet in Chen’s Er Huang, Vaughan Willams’ 6th Symphony and Simone Lamsma in Britten’s violin concerto, Beethoven’s 1st Symphony and Xavier Perianes in Beethoven concertos and Strauss’ Alpine Symphony and Sheku Kanneh Masin in Elgar’s cello concerto. She rounds out her year with the SSO with Bryn Terfel in Elijah, a program of Bach and Mozart and the final instalment, Die Götterdämmerung, of the orchestra’s 4-year Ring cycle undertaking.
2023 saw the commencement of Simone Young’s Sydney Symphony Orchestra “Ring Cycle” with the presentation of Das Rheingold which has continued to play to sold out audiences, standing ovations and 5-star reviews. A second, feature-length documentary film, Knowing the Score, about Simone Young and her career was also internationally released in 2023.
Simone Young is regularly invited by the world’s great orchestras and has lead the New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Stockholm, Oslo, Goeteborg, New Japan, Helsinki, BBC and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestras; the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo; Orchestre de Paris; Staatskapelle Dresden; the Bruckner Orchestra Linz; the Barcelona, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Minnesota, National Symphony Orchestra, Washington and the BBC Symphony Orchestras; the Bavarian Radio Symphony; the Deutsches Sinfonie, Berlin; the Wiener Symphoniker; the Polish National Radio Symphony; the MDR Orchestra; the NHK Symphony, Tokyo; the Orchestra Nacionale de España, Madrid. In Australia she has conducted the West Australian, Adelaide, Melbourne and Queensland Symphony Orchestras and the Australian World Orchestra.
Also a highly sought-after guest conductor at the world’s leading opera houses, in recent seasons Simone Young has appeared at the Vienna State Opera: Peter Grimes, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Britten), Die Fledermaus, Das verratene Meer (Henze), Lohengrin, The Gambler (Prokofiev), Faust, Parsifal and Salome; Bavarian State Opera, Munich: Jenufa, Tannhäuser, Aus einem toten Haus (Janacek), Tristan und Isolde, Fidelio, and Elektra; Berlin State Opera: Tosca, Fidelio, Chowantschina (Mussorgsky) Die Frau ohne Schatten, Tannhäuser; Zurich Opera: Salome, Elektra, Fidelio, Parsifal and Lohengrin; Teatro Real, Madrid: Lear (Reimann); Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm: Elektra. Most recent engagements include returns to The Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera and her La Scala, Milan debut with Peter Grimes.
Simone Young has previously been Music Director of Opera Australia, Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Principal Guest Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon and Principal Guest Conductor of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra.
Whilst Music Director of Opera Australia her development of musical standards in the company received praise from the profession and the public alike. During this time, productions she conducted included Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Otello, Eugene Onegin, Lulu, Lucia di Lammermoor, Tristan und Isolde, Tannhäuser, Falstaff, Don Carlos, Andrea Chenier, La bohème, Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro (from the fortepiano), Katya Kabanova, Un Ballo in Maschera, Der Rosenkavalier and Cavalleria Rusticana/I Pagliacci.
Simone Young is the recipient of many awards and honours including in 2025 an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sydney, the 2024 Conductor of the year (British Opera magazine), Honorary Member (Ehrenmitglied) of the Vienna State Opera, the 2019 European Cultural Prize Vienna, the 2014 International Opera Awards for best anniversary production for the Verdi trilogy – La battaglia di Legnano, I due Foscari, I Lombardi with the Hamburg Staatsoper, the 2011 Sir Bernard Heinze Award, the 2005 prestigious Goethe Institute Medal, her appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2004, the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and Honorary Doctorates from the University of Western Australia, Griffith University, Monash University and the University of New South Wales.
She has also been elected to the Akademie der Kuenste in Hamburg, nominated as the Conductor of the Year by Opernwelt magazine and awarded a Professorship at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg. Other awards include Green Room Awards for her performances of Die Frau ohne Schatten (Melbourne Festival), Tristan und Isolde, and Lulu, Helpmann Awards for Best Classical Concert with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Best Musical Direction (Andrea Chenier), the Mo Award for “Classical Performer of the Year”, and a Grammy nomination for her recording of La Juive.