Steven Sloane

Artist’s biography

Artistic vision and tireless cultural-political commitment: these are the qualities that have made the Los Angeles-born American-Israeli conductor Steven Sloane known worldwide. A former student of Eugene Ormandy, Franco Ferrara and Gary Bertini, he made his mark on festivals and opera houses such as the Spoleto Festival in Charleston and Opera North in Leeds at an early age. He has also served as principal conductor of the American Composers Orchestra and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra as well as artistic director for the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010.

Steven Sloane is a regular guest conductor with renowned orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Philharmonia Orchestra London, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

During the 2022/23 season he was a guest at Oper Frankfurt for a new production of The Magic Flute (directed by Ted Huffman) and at Volksoper Wien for the world premiere of Moritz Eggert's new opera Die letzte Verschwörung. In addition, David Lang's opera Prisoner of the State received its premieres in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium (Bochumer Symphoniker), and in Sweden at Malmö Opera under his direction in May/June 2023.

Steven Sloane took up the post of Music Director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in September 2020 and brought the orchestra on tour to Germany in June 2021, with acclaimed concerts at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Ruhr Piano Festival, as well as a joint performance of Gustav Mahler's 2nd Symphony with the Bochumer Symphoniker at the Jahrhunderthalle.

From 1994 to 2021 Steven Sloane was General Music Director of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, which advanced to become one of Germany's leading orchestras under his leadership. One of his greatest achievements was the realisation of the orchestra's own concert hall, the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr, which was successfully opened in 2016. Other extraordinary successes of his work with the Bochum Symphony included the exceptional production of Zimmermann's Die Soldaten at the Ruhrtriennale (2006) and at New York's Lincoln Center Festival (2008), the acclaimed Mahler/Ives cycle at the Philharmonie Essen, as well as numerous CD projects, including the complete recording of the orchestral works of Joseph Marx. As an honorary conductor, he remains closely associated with the orchestra and the city of Bochum.

As a sought-after opera conductor, he has enjoyed success at such houses as the Royal Opera House London (Le Nozze di Figaro), the L.A. Opera (Dido and Aeneas/Duke Bluebeard's Castle), San Francisco Opera (Wallace: Bonesetter's Daughter), Royal Opera Copenhagen (Madama Butterfly), Grand Théâtre de Genève (Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream), Houston Grand Opera (The Makropulos Affair, The Magic Flute), Welsh National Opera (Iphigénie en Tauride), Deutsche Oper Berlin (The Love for Three Oranges) and Stuttgart Opera (Macbeth), as well as at festivals in Hong Kong (Salome), Santa Fe (Káťa Kabanová), Edinburgh (Genoveva), Salzburg (Feldman: Neither) and New York (Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole at NY City Opera). His recent operatic successes include the Berlin premiere of Reimann's Medea at Komische Oper, Adriana Lecouvreur at Oper Frankfurt, Der Fliegende Holländer, Tosca and Falstaff in Malmö, and Salome at Spoleto Festival USA.

Steven Sloane is particularly interested in education and the promotion of young talent, and regularly conducts the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, the Bundesjugendorchester and the Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2013, he has been realising his vision of an International Conducting Academy at the Berlin University of the Arts.

In 2022 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.