Orchestre National de France

Conductor Jonathan Stockhammer has concentrated his activities primarily in Germany, where he has frequently directed performances centered on contemporary repertoire, though he also leads programs drawn from the standard canon; his extensive discography nevertheless tilts heavily toward new music.

Born on December 21, 1969, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, he was the son of a Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist and was therefore immersed early in the milieu of film scoring. Before committing to music he studied Chinese and political science, later completing a composition degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, followed by a conducting degree at the University of Southern California. In 1996 he received a fellowship at the Accademia Chigiana in Italy, where he was awarded the Merit Prize, and that same year he received the Kirill Kondrashin Award for conducting. He relocated permanently to Germany in 1998 yet maintained ties to the United States, holding a fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1999 and, in 2013, leading a New York City Opera production of Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face. His instructors included Ian Krouse, Peter Eötvös, Daniel Lewis, Robert Spano, Jorma Panula, Myung-Whun Chung, and Esa-Pekka Salonen; on his German-language website he singles out the decisive influence of Salonen and Eötvös, both noted for their advocacy of contemporary music.

Once established in Germany, Stockhammer quickly became a sought-after guest conductor, appearing with the Czech Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony, among others. He has returned repeatedly to the Opéra National de Lyon and has worked closely with contemporary-music ensembles such as Ensemble Resonanz, musikFabrik, and Ensemble Modern; his first recording, made with the latter group in 2004, was the RCA Red Seal release Greggery Peccary and Other Persuasions: The Ensemble Modern Plays Frank Zappa, which received an ECHO Klassik award that year. In 2013 he was named conductor in residence at the Collegium Novum Zürich. He has given world premieres of works by Wolfgang Rihm, Philip Glass, and Brian Ferneyhough, and he has also crossed stylistic boundaries in projects with the jazz duo Chick Corea and Gary Burton, the pop group Pet Shop Boys, and slam poet Saul Williams. Beyond his RCA catalog he has recorded for ECM, Harmonia Mundi, and Hänssler Classic; in 2022 he joined Deutsche Grammophon, accompanying violinist Mari Samuelsen on the contemporary album Lys.