Artists biographies
Sylvain Cambreling

In April 2010 Sylvain Cambreling became the Principal Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and in September 2012 takes up the position of General Music Director of Stuttgart Opera.

French-born conductor Sylvain Cambreling is a musician with big ideas. A thought-provoking, colourful and dramatic artist, he has a flair for grabbing the attention of audiences, yet his originality is rooted in thorough knowledge of musicology. As the Chief Conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, and Principal Guest Conductor of Klangforum Wien, he has offered ample proof of his gifts for imaginative programme-planning and persuasive championship of contemporary music.

Sylvain Cambreling was Music Director at La Monnaie for ten years before becoming Music Director at Frankfurt Opera in the 1990s. Productions notable for the introduction of new and often revolutionary ideas include “Pelléas et Mélisande” and “The Trojans” for the Salzburg Festival; “Wozzeck”, “Fidelio” and a “Ring” cycle in Frankfurt. Beyond that he has conducted extensively at Opéra National de Paris.

Cambreling balances his opera engagements with his appointments with SWR and Klangforum Wien, and guest appearances in concert with the world's leading orchestras.

A great believer in imaginative programming, Cambreling is famed for the originality of his concert-planning with the SWR Sinfonieorchester. A speciality is the juxtaposition of contrasting but related works or composers, for example Haydn and Messiaen, or Berlioz's “The Damnation of Faust” with Schumann's “Faust Scenes”.

In 2009 Sylvain Cambreling received the ECHO Klassik Conductor of the Year Award and the Deutsche Schallplatten Jahrespreise 2009 for best orchestral CD and in 2010 the MIDEM Contemporary Music Award for his recording of Messiaen with the SWR Freiburg and Baden-Baden Symphony Orchestra.