Steven Sloane

Artist’s biography

American-Israeli conductor Steven Sloane is a visionary whose creative concepts and outstanding artistic merits have garnered respect in both artistic circles and in the realm of cultural politics. A student of Eugene Ormandy, Franco Ferrara, and Gary Bertini, he quickly set off for an international career and served as music director of the Spoleto Festival USA, Opera North in Leeds, and the American Composers Orchestra, as principal conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, as artistic director of “Ruhr.2010” Capital of Culture, and as principal guest conductor and artistic advisor of the Malmö Opera.

From 1994 to 2021, Steven Sloane was General Music Director of the Bochum Symphony, which he transformed into one of Germany’s leading orchestras. He was instrumental in the building and realisation of the orchestra’s own music centre, the Anneliese BrostMusikforum Ruhr, inaugurating the hall in 2016 to international acclaim. Other extraordinary achievements of his work with the Bochum Symphony include the exceptional production of Zimmermann's Die Soldaten at the Ruhrtriennale (2006) and at the New York Lincoln Center Festival (2008), the celebrated Mahler/Ives cycle at the Philharmonie Essen, and numerous CD projects, including the complete recording of Joseph Marx’s orchestral works. He will remain associated with the Bochum Symphony as honorary conductor.

In September 2020, Steven Sloane took up his new post as music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, introducing several new concert series and formats in his first season. Highlights include a tour to Germany in June 2021 with concerts at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Klavier-Festival Ruhr, as well as a joint performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra at the Jahrhunderthalle, and the world premiere of the new opera Kundry by Avner Dorman at the Regarding Festival in Tel Aviv in October 2021.

Steven Sloane is a frequent guest with prestigious orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the radio orchestras of Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt and Leipzig, as well as the Konzerthausorchester, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestra Filarmonica di Bologna, Netherlands Philharmonic, 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.

As a sought after opera conductor, he has been welcomed at houses such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Le Nozze di Figaro), Los Angeles Opera (Dido and Aeneas/Bluebeard's Castle), San Francisco Opera (Wallace: Bonesetter's Daughter), Royal Danish Opera (Madame Butterfly), Grand Théâtre de Genève (Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream), Houston Grand Opera (Věc Makropulos, The Magic Flute), Welsh National Opera (Iphigénie en Tauride), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Die Liebe zu den drei Orangen) 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 (Turnage's Anna Nicole at the NY City Opera). His most recent opera accomplishments 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 the Spoleto Festival USA.

Mentoring young musicians has always been important to Steven Sloane. He has regularly conducted youth orchestras such as Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Bundesjugendorchester, and Young Israel Philharmonic, and since 2013 he has served as professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where he founded the International Conducting Academy Berlin.