David Robertson

David Robertson is a sought-after conductor of opera, orchestral music, and new music.

With the 2017-18 season, he concluded his 13-year tenure with the St. Louis Symphony as the orchestra’s music director. Robertson is chief conductor and artistic director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He has served in artistic leadership positions at musical institutions including the Orchestre National de Lyon and, as a protégé of Pierre Boulez, the Ensemble InterContemporain, which he led on its first North American tour. At the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he served as principal guest conductor. At the Metropolitan Opera he has lead numerous productions and appears at houses including La Scala, Bayerische Staatsoper, Théâtre du Châtelet, the San Francisco Opera and more.

Robertson has served as a perspective artist at Carnegie Hall, where he has conducted, among others, the Met Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony. He appears regularly with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Bayerische Rundfunk and the Dresden Staatskapelle, and at the Berlin Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, the BBC Proms and the Musica Viva Festival in Munich.

During his tenure with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Robertson solidified the orchestra’s standing as one of the nation’s most enduring and innovative. His established fruitful relationships with artists across a spectrum, as evidenced by the orchestra’s ongoing collaboration with composer John Adams. Robertson is the recipient of numerous musical and artistic awards, and in 2010 was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Robertson is devoted to supporting young musicians and has worked with students at the festivals of Aspen, Tanglewood, Lucerne, at the Paris Conservatoire, Music Academy of the West, and the National Orchestra Institute. In 2014 he led the USA Coast to Coast tour of the National Youth Orchestra of Carnegie Hall.

Robertson was educated at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he studied horn and composition before turning to orchestral conducting.