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.

Hailed for her “brilliant… polished, expressive and intense” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) and “absolutely stunning” (Chicago Tribune) playing, Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma is respected by critics, peers and audiences as one of classical music’s most striking and captivating musical personalities.

With an extensive repertoire, Simone has been the guest of many of the world’s leading orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Wiener Symphoniker, Tonkünstler Orchester,  Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Helsinki Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, MDR Sinfonieorchester, National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Les Siécles, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Belgian National Orchestra, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Simone performs with eminent conductors such as Jaap van Zweden, Antonio Pappano, Paavo Järvi, Gianandrea Noseda, Tarmo Peltokoski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Vladimir Jurowski, Rafael Payare, Louis Langrée, Gustavo Gimeno, Karina Canellakis, Jonathon Heyward, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Kazuki Yamada, Marc Albrecht, Stéphane Denève, Vassily Petrenko, Domingo Hindoyan, Michael Francis, Simone Young, François-Xavier Roth, Olari Elts, Fabien Gabel, Duncan Ward, Juraj Valcuha, John Storgards, Omer Meir-Wellber, Edward Gardner, Kent Nagano, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, James Gaffigan, Sir Mark Elder, Daniel Raiskin, Edo de Waart, Andris Poga, Jun Märkl, Kevin John Edusei, Markus Stenz, Antony Hermus, Jaime Martin, Case Scaglione, Alexander Shelley, Jader Bignamini, Mark Wigglesworth, Asher Fisch and Petr Popelka.

In the 2025/26 season, Simone will return, among several engagements, to the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal with Rafael Payare, Seoul Philharmonic with Jaap van Zweden, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Tarmo Peltokoski, Sydney Symphony with Simone Young, RAI Symphony with Alpesh Chauhan, Baltimore Symphony with Jonathon Heyward, Antwerp Symphony at the Enescu Festival with Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, BBC Philharmonic with John Storgards, Liverpool Philharmonic with Domingo Hindoyan and debut with  Singapore Symphony under Hannu Lintu, Seattle Symphony Orchestra under Sunny Xia and Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana under Pierre Bleuse. She will also play recitals with pianist Jonathan Fournel at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall and Heidelberger Frühling Festival. In 2025 Simone premiered a work by leading Dutch composer Joey Roukens at the Tivoli Vredenbrug Utrecht and a piece by Danish composer Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen co-commissioned by the Danish National Symphony and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras.

In 2022 her most recent recording was released to great acclaim, featuring late works by Rautavaara, including a world première, with the Malmö Symphony and Robert Trevino for the Ondine label. Other recordings include Shostakovich’s first Violin Concerto and Gubaidulina’s In Tempus praesens with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under James Gaffigan and Reinbert de Leeuw on Challenge Classics, and a recital album of works by Mendelssohn, Janáček and Schumann with pianist Robert Kulek, also on Challenge Classics.

In 2019, Simone was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, an honour limited to 300 former Academy students, and awarded to those musicians who have distinguished themselves within the profession.

Simone Lamsma plays the 1703 ‘Aurora ex-Foulis’ Stradivarius, on generous loan to her by a benefactor.