Conductor Simone Young earned acclaim for pioneering achievements in opera houses across several continents while also building a substantial profile on the concert stage. In the mid-2020s she served as chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a role that brought her renewed international attention.
Born in Sydney on March 2, 1961, Young pursued nearly all of her musical education domestically. She completed secondary studies at Monte Sant’Angelo Mercy College before enrolling at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she concentrated on conducting, piano, and composition. In 1983 she joined Opera Australia as a répétiteur. Three years later she became the company’s resident conductor, the first woman and the youngest musician to hold that position. Assistant posts followed in Europe: she worked under James Conlon at the Cologne Opera and under Daniel Barenboim at both Oper Berlin and the Bayreuth Festival, where Wagner’s music eventually formed a central part of her repertoire.
Her breakthrough came in 1993 when she became the first woman to lead a performance at the Vienna State Opera; she later repeated that milestone at the Volksoper in Vienna and at Opéra Bastille in Paris. Parallel to these operatic milestones, Young directed the Bergen Symphony in Norway as principal conductor from 1998 to 2002. In 2000 she led the Sydney Symphony at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games and made her first commercial recording for the Melba label, directing the State Orchestra of Victoria in the tenor album Seduction: Songs by Richard Strauss featuring Steve Davislim. Between 2001 and 2003 she served as chief conductor of Opera Australia before resigning amid criticism over production costs.
In 2005 she assumed a dual leadership post in Germany as general director of the Hamburg State Opera and chief conductor of the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra. During her decade there she presented a 2013 bicentennial festival titled Wagner-Wahn that encompassed all ten of the composer’s stage works. After departing Hamburg in 2015, Young continued to record for Oehms Classics; her complete cycle of Brahms symphonies with the Hamburg Philharmonic appeared in 2017, followed by several Bruckner symphony releases with the same orchestra. Having appeared frequently as a guest with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, she was named its principal conductor in 2022, an appointment extended at least through 2026.
