Chautauqua Institution is pleased to announce that Stefan Sanderling has accepted the Institution’s invitation to become the new music director of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

Sanderling stated, “I am honored and excited to become the new music director of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. Since my first appearance with this great orchestra, I have been taken by their wonderful music making, their commitment to excellence and their extraordinary camaraderie. If there is one place in the world where the utopia of a true synthesis of the arts, philosophy, religion and education can become reality, this place is Chautauqua. I am thrilled to be a part of the Chautauqua Institution and look forward to my first season in the summer of 2008.”

Marty W. Merkley, vice president and director of programming, added, “Stefan is a wonderful fit for Chautauqua and the CSO. He is very enthusiastic about the position, anxious to begin and committed to Chautauqua and the orchestra. He is an excellent musician, wonderful with audiences and has a terrific sense of humor.”

The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1929 at the Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York State. The orchestra is in residence for eight weeks of the Institution’s nine-week summer festival. The CSO performs 19 orchestra concerts, accompanies two ballet programs and four operas. The members of the orchestra come from cities and orchestras across the United States and three foreign countries. The Chautauqua Institution is a not-for-profit education center and summer vacation destination located on 750 acres in Chautauqua, New York, in the extreme southwestern part of New York State. It was founded in 1874 by Methodist Bishop John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller, an Akron, Ohio, inventor and manufacturer, and father-in-law to world famous inventor Thomas Edison, as a camp for Sunday school teachers. The Institution has operated each summer since then, gradually expanding its season and program offerings. The Institution offers professional components of symphony, opera, theater, dance, chamber music, lectures and contemporary entertainment. A residential program of intensive study is offered to students on the verge of professional careers through the Chautauqua Institution’s Schools of Fine and Performing Arts. In 1973, the National Park Service recognized the Institution’s historic importance by adding it to the National Register of Historic Places.

German-born Sanderling is also music director of The Florida Orchestra in Tampa/St. Petersburg and principal conductor of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Since his North American debut at the 1989 Tanglewood Summer Music Festival, Sanderling has quickly risen to the top of the young generation of German conductors. He has conducted such prestigious North American orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and the orchestras of Indianapolis, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Buffalo, to name a few.

Receiving his early artistic inspiration from his parents, Sanderling studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Kurt Masur. He then moved to the United States to continue his studies at the University of Southern California. He also attended the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, winning several awards, and Tanglewood, where he worked with Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Slatkin and Yuri Termikanov.

Celebrated for his interpretation of the music of Shostakovich, Sanderling has conducted across Europe, leading such legendary orchestras as the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra of London, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchestra (Salzburg), Prague Symphony, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berliner Staatskapelle, NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, Bamberg Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony, Berliner Sinfonie Orchester and Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle Bonn among many others. He has also guest conducted the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Komische Oper Berlin.

During the past several seasons, Sanderling made his debuts in Australia with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and in Japan with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. His highly successful appearances with the NHK Symphony of Tokyo continue on a regular basis, and he also appeared in Japan with the New Japan Philharmonic and the Osaka Philharmonic as well as the Super World Orchestra Tokyo.

He has appeared several times with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with whom he has recorded the complete symphonies of Honneger for the Naxos label.

Sanderling made his first recording on the Sony Classics label with the London Symphony Orchestra. Three highly acclaimed recordings with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have been released on the RPO label, featuring symphonies by Haydn and Mendelssohn. He has recorded the complete Tchaikovsky Orchestral Suites with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland on the Naxos label. Most recently, he completed several discs of works by the French composers Gretry, Ladmirault, Gossec, and Mehul on the ASV label with the Orchestre de Bretagne.