British conductor Finnegan Downie Dear has established an international presence through his work across both symphonic and operatic repertoire, developing close relationships with leading orchestras and opera houses throughout Europe and beyond.

Highlights of the 2026/27 season include significant opera debuts at the Opéra national de Paris, where he will conduct a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni directed by Louisa Proske, as well as at the Semperoper Dresden with Beethoven's Fidelio. He also returns to Opera Australia with Puccini's La bohème. Symphonic highlights include renewed engagements with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg (on two concert tours), the Västerås Sinfonietta, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, and the Hellenic State Orchestra of Athens. He also makes his concert debuts with Les Siècles at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and with the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice.

Downie Dear is a regular guest at the Berlin State Opera, where he most recently conducted productions of Don Giovanni and The Turn of the Screw. Previously, he led performances of The Makropulos Affair and The Marriage of Figaro there, as well as numerous concerts with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra – with a repertoire ranging from Schubert and Ravel to Kurtág, Benjamin, and Abrahamsen.

Among the recent symphonic highlights is his return to Staatskapelle Dresden for subscription concerts following his debut with the orchestra, as well as renewed engagements with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Potsdam Chamber Academy, and the Greek National Orchestra of Athens. He also made debuts with the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Enescu Philharmonic, and the Welsh National Opera Orchestra. Furthermore, he toured with the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra to Baden-Baden and the Elbphilharmonie and conducted concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, the DSO Berlin, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Among the soloists he has worked with are Kirill Gerstein, Mikhail Pletnev, Paul Lewis, Steven Osborne, Gil Shaham, Isabelle Faust, Veronika Eberle, James Ehnes and Gautier Capuçon.

His recent opera engagements include debuts at the Opéra de Lyon (Billy Budd) and at Garsington Opera (Der Rosenkavalier), as well as a return to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with The Magic Flute, where he also conducted Gerald Barry's Alice's Adventures Under Ground.

Further engagements took him to the Hamburg State Opera (Eugene Onegin, Falstaff), the Theater an der Wien (Miroslav Srnka’s Voice Killer), the Korean National Opera (Hänsel und Gretel), the Polish National Opera (Die tote Stadt) and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, where he conducted Oliver Leith's acclaimed new production of Billy Budd. He also appeared at the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Tokyo Spring To experience the festival.

Finnegan Downie Dear is the artistic director of Shadwell Opera, a London-based opera company dedicated to contemporary British repertoire and experimental operatic forms. Their production of Oliver Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are toured the Mariinsky Theatre in 2019 and Bamberg in 2022, the latter in partnership with the Bamberg Symphony. In the summer of 2024, the company premiered Isabella Gellis's The Devil's Den at the Nevill Holt Festival. Downie Dear presented a new production of the work at Opera North in November 2025.

Born in London, Downie Dear graduated with distinction in musicology from the University of Cambridge and in piano from the Royal Academy of Music. He came to international attention in 2020 when he was awarded First Prize at the International Mahler Competition of the Bamberger Symphoniker.

Fascination for musical discovery combined with boundless curiosity, imagination, and virtuosity have established Kirill Gerstein as one of today’s most prolific and compelling performers. Gerstein is a searching artist. As a pianist, curator, educator, musical leader, and artistic collaborator, his exploration of resonant themes across a vast spectrum of repertoire - from Baroque suites and Classical concerti to contemporary creations, jazz, and cabaret – has nourished relationships with many of the world’s leading orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists, singers, composers, festivals, recording labels, and media platforms. 

Highlights of the past season include Gerstein’s Carnegie Hall/Stern Auditorium solo recital debut, marking Ferruccio Busoni’s centenary with performances of his Piano Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Orchestre National de France, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon; Gershwin with the Staatskapelle Dresden on ZDF German national television’s traditional New Year’s eve gala broadcast; the closing concert of the Musikfest Berlin performing Messiaen’s From the Canyons to the Stars with Sir Simon Rattle; the Berg Kammerkonzert with Ilya Gringolts, Heinz Holliger and Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; returns to Japan and Korea performing Brahms Second Piano Concerto; engagements with the orchestras of St. Louis, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Atlanta; a release on the ECM label of Chick Corea’s The Visitors with legendary vibraphonist, Gary Burton; a poignantly timely program with the Wiener Symphoniker pairing Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon with Beethoven’s Emperor concerto followed by a satirical encore by Hanns Eisler; and an interdisciplinary project with the Ruhr Piano Festival uniting school children, renowned choreographers, scholars and world music authorities around the music of Armenian priest, musicologist, and composer, Vardapet Komitas.

Gerstein was Artist-in-Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2023-24, Spotlight Artist with the London Symphony Orchestra, Resident Artist at the Festival Aix-en-Provence, and curated a three-part Busoni and his World concert series at London’s Wigmore Hall. In 2023, he released an acclaimed album with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko celebrating Rachmaninov’s 150th anniversary and performed Berlin cabaret songs of the 1920s with iconic performance artist and composer, HK Gruber. Gerstein also regularly play-conducts programs, most recently the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Beethoven 4), the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris (a program of Mozart, Salieri and Beethoven Piano Concerti), the Budapest Festival Orchestra (Rhapsody in Blue) and the Czech Philharmonic (Beethoven 1).  

Media projects, broadcasts, and digital innovation represent an integral part of Gerstein’s creativity. He has recorded for Platoon/Apple Music, myrios, Deutsche Grammophon, DECCA, Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings, with performances filmed by Unitel, Accentus Music, and EuroArts, broadcast on ORF, BBC, ARTE, and Marquee TV, and streamed on medici.tv and STAGE+. Gerstein’s Music in Time of War, pairing late piano works by Claude Debussy with pieces by Vardapet Komitas earned him a 2025 special Opus Klassik Award for exceptional curation. Expanding the traditional album concept, the recording is integrated into a hardcover book containing a wealth of documentary images and original scholarship.

Gerstein’s world première recording of Thomas Adès’ Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Boston Symphony conducted by the composer was nominated for three Grammys and received the 2020 Gramophone Award. His recording of Adès’s The Tempest Suite, with violinist Christian Tetzlaff, was released on the Platoon label in 2025. Other noteworthy Gerstein albums include Strauss’s Enoch Arden with the great Swiss actor Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire, The Downfall); Tchaikovsky’s complete Piano Concertos (including the 1st Concerto in the composer’s original urtext version) with Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic; The Gershwin Moment with the St. Louis Symphony and David Robertson, including special appearances from American singer-songwriter Storm Large and Gary Burton; and Mozart Four-Hand Piano Sonatas with Ferenc Rados.

A true champion of music of our time, Gerstein has commissioned and premièred new works by Timo Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Brad Mehldau, among others. Since giving the world première of Thomas Adès’s Concerto Piano and Orchestra in 2019, Gerstein has performed the work over 60 times, with 20 different orchestras on three continents. Gerstein also recently recorded Thomas Larcher’s Piano Concerto with the Bergen Philharmonic and Ed Gardner for ECM. His premiere performances of Francisco Coll’s Two Waltzes Toward Civilization at Carnegie Hall will be followed by the creation of Coll’s new Piano Concerto with Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2026.

Gerstein is dedicated to learning. He is currently Professor of Piano at Berlin’s Hanns Eisler Hochschule and on the faculty of Kronberg Academy. At Kronberg Academy, his series of free online seminars featuring conversations with the 21st century’s leading artistic minds has to date reached an audience of over 150,000 viewers. His guests have included Ai Weiwei, Brad Melhdau, Thomas Adès, Iván Fischer, Alex Ross, Matthew Aucoin, Kirill Serebrennikov, Elizabeth Wilson, Simon & Gerard McBurney, Robert Levin, Reinhard Goebel, Simon Callow, Emma Smith, Deborah Borda, Sir Antonio Pappano and the late Kaija Saariaho. Gerstein also coaches at the Verbier Festival Academy and at IMS Prussia Cove.

Born in 1979 in Voronezh, Russia, Gerstein attended one of the country’s special music schools for gifted children and taught himself to play jazz at home by listening to his parents’ record collection. Following a chance encounter with Gary Burton in St. Petersburg when he was 14, he was invited as the youngest student to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. At the age of 16, Gerstein completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at New York’s Manhattan School of Music, followed by further studies with Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid and Ferenc Rados in Budapest. First Prize winner at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein Competition, in 2010, Gerstein received the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award, as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music in 2021.