Contralto Nathalie Stutzmann first built an international profile through recital, concert, and opera engagements before shifting emphasis toward the podium. She now appears regularly with leading ensembles throughout North America and Europe, having established and led the chamber orchestra Orfeo 55. The year 2021 brought a dual milestone: the release of the album Contralto, on which she both sang and conducted Orfeo 55, and her appointment as music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, making her only the second woman to head a major American orchestra. In 2024 she issued her first recording with that ensemble, presenting Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (“From a New World”) alongside the American Suite.
Born on May 6, 1965, in the Paris suburb of Suresnes, Stutzmann began musical training early, taking up piano and bassoon in addition to vocal instruction from her mother, the chamber musician Christiane Stutzmann. She continued at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional du Grand Nancy and the École Nationale in Paris, studying with Hans Hotter, Christa Ludwig, and Daniel Ferro. Recognition arrived quickly when she captured first prize at the Brussels Vocal Competition in 1983. Two years later she made her professional concert debut at the Salle Pleyel in Bach’s Magnificat, BWV 243, followed in 1986 by her recital debut in Nantes and her first operatic appearance at the Paris Opera in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
A 1989 recording of Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula, HWV 11 under Marc Minkowski opened doors to a sustained international career. Although her operatic roles center on French repertoire, notably Geneviève in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, they also encompass Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, and Wagner’s Das Rheingold. On the concert platform she has performed the principal works of Bach, Vivaldi, and Mahler, while her recital programs have earned praise for their sensitive readings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art song and German lieder. Despite encountering resistance toward women conductors during her student years, Stutzmann pursued the discipline, working with Seiji Ozawa during engagements in Japan, Sir Simon Rattle, and Jorma Panula. In 2009 she created Orfeo 55, serving as both conductor and soloist until the ensemble disbanded in 2019.
She has recorded extensively for major labels and entered an exclusive arrangement with Warner Classics/Erato in 2014. Accolades for her discs include the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Diapason d’Or. Among her most widely heard releases are Schumann lieder, Schubert’s Winterreise, and Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, the last of which brought a Grammy nomination. Her initial major conducting post was principal guest conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, a role she held from 2017 to 2020. Between 2018 and 2023 she served as chief conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, the first woman in that position, and from 2021 to 2024 she became the first woman to hold a conducting post with the Philadelphia Orchestra, acting as principal guest conductor.
Also in 2021 she conducted and sang on the album Contralto, which contained several world-premiere recordings. Succeeding Robert Spano, she assumed the music directorship of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that same year. After the 2021–2022 Metropolitan Opera season was canceled, she made her house debut in 2023 leading Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte, both of which received strong critical notice. Later that year she conducted Wagner’s Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival. In 2024 she led the Atlanta Symphony in its recording of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (“From a New World”) and American Suite.
