Stéphane Denève

Conductor
Stéphane Denève is music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, artistic director of the New World Symphony, and from the 2023/24 season will also be principal guest conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. He was formerly principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, music director of the Brussels Philharmonic, chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR), and music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Renowned for the quality of his performances and programming, Mr. Denève regularly appears at major concert venues with the world’s greatest orchestras and soloists. He has a special anity for the music of his native France, and is an advocate for 21st-century music.
Mr. Denève frequently appears with leading North American orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and NSO Washington (with whom he conducted John Williams’s 90th Birthday Gala in 2022). Further aeld, his recent highlights have included appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (with whom he was invited to conduct the 2020 Nobel Prize concert), Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Wiener Symphoniker, DSO Berlin, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
A gifted communicator and educator, Mr. Denève is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians and listeners. In addition to his position with the New World Symphony, he has been invited on many occasions to share his experience and expertise with young orchestral musicians, including at the Colburn School, Tanglewood Music Center, European Union Youth Orchestra, and Music Academy of the West.

Yasuhito Sugiyama

Tuba
Formerly of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Osaka Phil- harmonic Orchestra, and Orchestra Osaka Symphoniker, Yasuhito Sugiyama joined the New Japan Philharmonic and the Saito Kinen Orchestra, both in 1997. He performed with the New Japan Philharmonic for the Tuba Concerto by Vaughan Williams in 1998 and held recitals in Tokyo and Osaka in 1999. In a 2002 New Japan Philharmonic family concert, he was soloist for Tubby the Tuba. In 2003, he became the first Asian to join Wiener Staatsoper Orchester. In 2005, he performed in the New Year’s Concert under the baton of Lorin Maazel and was a member of Wiener Philharmoniker until September of the same year. In September 2005, he joined the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the “Big Five” orchestras in the US, of which he remains a member to date. In June 2014, he participated in the Gabrieli project as a member of the National Brass Ensemble in Sonoma, California. In addition to teaching younger musicians at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he is also a visiting professor at Soai University and conducts masterclasses at Indiana University, Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, San Fran- cisco Conservatory of Music, and Northwestern University, among others. Recently in June 2021, he performed with the Aichi Chamber Orchestra for the Tuba Concerto by Vaughan Williams. Since 2021, he has been organizing the Japan Brass Seminar in Kawanishi of Hyogo Prefecture every summer. In August 2022, he held a duo recital with his close friend, Massimo La Rosa. Mr. Sugiyama has studied under Shigeo Takesada, Fuminori Ogata, the late Shuzo Karakawa, Robert Tucci, Rex Martin, and Ronald Bishop, and chamber music under Shinichi Go.

Isabel Leonard

Three-time Grammy Award winning artist Isabel Leonard has established herself as one of the most in-demand performers as a star on the world’s leading stages and screens. The 2022/23 season sees her house debut at Teatro alla Scala as Miranda in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, as well as her house debut at Houston Grand Opera to sing Charlotte in Werther, conducted by Robert Spano. Continuing her long-time collaboration with Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra music director Stéphane Denève, she appears as Marguerite in a concert performance of Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust. In the recital hall, Ms. Leonard partners with renowned Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas for performances with Lincoln Center Presents the Metropolitan Opera at Alice Tully Hall, LA Opera at the Colburn School, San Diego Opera at the La Jolla Music Society, the Harris Theatre in Chicago, and the Conservatorìo de Música de Puerto Rico. The 2021/22 season saw her return to the Metropolitan Opera in her role debut as Der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos, a return to the role of Cherubino in the Richard Eyre production of Le nozze di Figaro, and in the title role in Laurent Pelly’s production of Cinderella. Ms. Leonard also made her debut in the title role of Carmen in both Francesca Zambello’s production at Washington National Opera, conducted by music director Evan Rogister, and in Santa Fe Opera’s production conducted by Harry Bicket. Ms. Leonard also appeared in Washington National Opera’s reopening gala, Come Home, as well as a concert commemorating the anniversary of September 11 with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. In recital, she appeared at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Connecticut.