Stefan Asbury
Conductor
Bio
A regular guest with leading orchestras worldwide, conductor Stefan Asbury’s 2022/23 season began with visits to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition, the Indianapolis Symphony, and debuts with the Florida Orchestra and the Tulsa Symphony. He also returns to Europe for appearances with the Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, Ensemble Modern, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, and later in the season the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.
Stefan Asbury’s performances last season include debuts with the Montreal Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In Europe, he led Ensemble Resonanz at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and appeared with the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, Ensemble Modern, and Szczecin Philharmonic.
Past seasons saw Asbury conducting around the world, including performances with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Szczecin Philharmonic and more. He also conducted the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig as part of Beethovenfest Bonn, and Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao during Bilbao’s Musika-Musica 2019 festival.
Asbury has particularly strong relationships with many living composers including Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Unsuk Chin, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. He has conducted the world premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Organ Concert at the Musikverein in Vienna and the world premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Piano Concerto with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, including the US premiere with Aimard and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Following the sad passing of Oliver Knussen, a very close mentor, Stefan conducted his last completed composition with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in November of 2018.
As a recording artist, Stefan Asbury’s CD of music by Jonathan Harvey was awarded a Monde de la Musique CHOC award, and his complete cycle of Gerard Grisey’s Les Espaces Accoustiques with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln won a Deutschen Schallplattenkritik award.
Since 1995 Asbury has served on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center and has held the Sana H. Sabbagh Master Teacher Chair on the Conducting Faculty since 2005.
