- L’Auditori has appointed the young Franco-British director to the post for the next two seasons, starting in September 2024.
- This season, Childress visits L’Auditori on 27 and 28 April to conduct the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and pianist Yulianna Avdeeva.
- She takes over from Marta Gardolińska, who can still be seen on 1 March (Haydn’s Creation) and on 19 and 20 April (Enigma Variations Enigma concert).
L’Auditori has appointed Stephanie Childress as the Principal Guest Conductor of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (OBC) for the 2024-25 and the 2025-26 seasons.
The artistic team led by Robert Brufau, director of L’Auditori, takes another step forward in its commitment to the most outstanding emerging figures on the international circuit. ‘Rarely does it happen that a young artist generates such a forceful and consistent impact on the sector, which is increasingly attentive to new voices and renewed leadership on the circuit. With her elegance and lucidity, Childress took a giant step forward in her career in 2020 at La Maestra International Competition, in Paris, at which we were part of the ECHO committee of the Jury and, since then, she has been conducting the best orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic. Her incorporation is a new opportunity to position our institution as an international benchmark, not only musically, but also as a reflection of the rich and complex social reality that surrounds us’, said Brufau.
For her part, Childress has stated: ‘I am truly honoured to have been appointed as Principal Guest Conductor of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and to be strengthening my ties to an organisation that has been dear to me since our first meeting. As the orchestra takes dynamic steps forward, I am delighted to be making this next step in my career alongside such wonderful musicians and a dedicated team led by Maestro Morlot. I look forward to experiencing many more precious musical moments together and to share these with our Catalan and Spanish audiences in one of the most beautifully active cities in the world.’
This season, we will have the opportunity to see the Franco-British conductor lead the OBC at L’Auditori, as she will be conducting the ensemble on 27 and 28 April in aconcert dedicated to Chopin, which will also feature pianist Yulianna Avdeeva
The public will also be able to bid farewell to the OBC’s current guest conductor, Marta Gardolińksa, at the concerts she will still be conducting on 1 March (Creation , Haydn) and 19 and 20 April (concierto Enigma Variations ) of this season.
Stephanie Childress made her debut at the helm of the OBC in the 2021-22 seasonduring the orchestra’s tour of Catalonia. She conducted the concerts held on 24 and 27 February 2022 at the Teatre Fortuny in Reus and the Auditori Enric Granados in Lleida, headed by a programme dedicated to Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, which also featured soloist Sergei Dogadin. After the success of her debut, that same year, she once again conducted the OBC in the Mozart Summer Nights Festival with cellist Kian Soltani as soloist.
His meteoric rise has led her to conduct, among others, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (Konzerthausorchester), l’Orchestre de Paris and the London Symphony Orchestra. Childress continues to make his mark in both the symphonic and operatic repertoires, especially after the success gathered at Glyndebourne (UK) conducting Le Nozze di Figaro last autumn. Her impressive 23-24 season includes debuts with the Hamburg Staatsoper, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra National of Poland or the Detroit Opera.
