Conductor Stéphane Denève has been influential in the fields of orchestral music and opera and has led ensembles in France, the U.S., and Germany. He is music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Denève was born in Tourcoing on the French-Belgian border on November 24, 1971. He attended the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP) and rounded out his conducting education with assistantships under Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre, and Seiji Ozawa. Denève's first major appearance was in the U.S., conducting Poulenc's opera Dialogues des Carmelites at the Santa Fe Opera in 1999, and he ...