Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor, Simone Young has previously held the posts of General Manager and Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Music Director of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, Music Director of Opera Australia, Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of both the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. Her appointment as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra has recently been extended through until the end of 2029.

An acknowledged interpreter of the operas of Wagner and Strauss, she has conducted complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival, Vienna Staatsoper, Berlin Staatsoper, Hamburg Staatsoper and, in 2026, La Scala Milan.

Simone Young has an extensive and celebrated recording catalogue. Her first performance as Chief Conductor in Sydney, featuring Mahler’s Symphony No.2 Resurrection and the world premiere of William Barton’s Of the Earth was released worldwide on Deutsche Grammophon, and performances of Elgar & Vaughan Williams, Das Rheingold and Gurrelieder have been filmed for Sydney Symphony On Demand. Her Hamburg recordings include the Ring Cycle, Mathis der Maler (Hindemith), Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (Schmidt) and symphonies of Bruckner, Brahms and Mahler. She has also recorded Benjamin Britten Folksongs and songs of Richard Strauss with Steve Davislim, and songs by Wagner and Strauss with Lisa Gasteen.

Simone Young’s return invitations to the great orchestras of the world in 2026 will include the Suisse Romande, the Orchestre nationale de Lyon, West German Radio Orchestra Cologne, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France Paris, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco and Montreal Symphony Orchestras, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester. She also returns to ANAM, Melbourne to lead their orchestra in a 30th birthday celebration Gala performance.

Firmly established as one of the world’s leading opera conductors, 2026 will see Simone Young return to the Berlin Staatsoper (Lohengrin and Nabucco), La Scala Milan (the Ring cycle and a new work by Luca Francesconi) and Götterdämmerung, completing Sydney Symphony’s Ring Cycle.

The presentation of Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Ring Cycle in concert, commencing in 2023, has played to sold out audiences, standing ovations and 5-star reviews. A second, feature-length documentary film, Knowing the Score, showcasing Simone Young and her career was also internationally released in 2023.

In 2025 Simone Young was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sydney. Her many accolades also include the 2024 Conductor of the year (British Opera magazine), Honorary Member (Ehrenmitglied) of the Vienna State Opera, the 2019 European Cultural Prize Vienna, a Professorship at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg, Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Western Australia and New South Wales, Griffith University and Monash University, the Sir Bernard Heinze Award, the Goethe Institute Medal, the 2013 Helpmann Award for Best Individual Classical Music Performance and the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France.

‘A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary’ (Wall Street Journal), Pierre-Laurent Aimard is widely acclaimed as an authority on music of our time while also recognised for shedding fresh light on music of the past.

In the 2025/26 season, Pierre-Laurent celebrates the 100th birthday of his longtime friend and collaborator György Kurtág with recitals at the Budapest Music Centre, Philharmonie Luxembourg and as part of his residency with Madrid’s Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical. J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Vol.2 also constitutes a programme mainstay throughout the season surrounding the release of the album in October 2025, which follows 11 years after the success of Vol.1. Scheduled performances include Concertgebouw Amsterdam, London’s Southbank Centre, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Stockholm Konzerthaus, Seattle Benaroya Hall, Chamber Music Detroit and Boston Celebrity Series. Aimard’s extensive recital schedule also includes the Louvre, NTCH Taipei, NCPA Beijing and Shanghai Concert Hall. With orchestra, Aimard makes solo appearances across the season with the New York Philharmonic, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Stuttgart Kammerorchester, Hamburg Symphoniker, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Concerto Budapest, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Singapore Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic.

Aimard has enjoyed close collaborations with leading composers, including Helmut Lachenmann, Elliott Carter, Harrison Birtwistle, György Kurtág, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marco Stroppa and Olivier Messiaen, and given many notable premieres; most recently DIVISONS for four hands by George Benjamin at Berlin’s Boulez Saal, which he repeats in the 2025/26 season at 92NY, the Library of Congress in Washington, and London’s Wigmore Hall. He also continues his associations with regular chamber music partners, most notably Isabelle Faust, Jörg Widmann and Jean-Guihen Queyras, touring Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Kölner Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Wien, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional with Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.

In 2025 Aimard released Kurtág: Játékok. The latest in a series of critically acclaimed collaborations with Pentatone, it was awarded five stars by BBC Music Magazine. It follows Schubert: Ländler (2024), the complete Bartók Piano Concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (2023), Visions de l’Amen (2022) recorded with Tamara Stefanovich, Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021), and Messiaen’s magnum opus Catalogue d’oiseaux (2018), which garnered multiple awards, including the German Record Critics’ Award.

Aimard is widely recognised as an innovative curator and uniquely significant interpreter of piano repertoire from every age. Previous residencies include the complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos for Musikkollegium Winterthur and ground-breaking projects at Porto’s Casa da Musica, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Konzerthaus Vienna, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Lucerne Festival, Mozarteum Salzburg, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Tanglewood Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, and as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 2009 to 2016.

The recipient of many prizes, Aimard was awarded the prestigious International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2017 in recognition of a life devoted to the service of music and the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s most prominent music award in 2022. A member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Aimard has held professorships at the Hochschule Köln and was previously an Associate Professor at the College de France, Paris. In spring 2020, he re-launched a major online resource in collaboration with the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Explore the Score, which centres on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music.