David Robertson

David Robertson – conductor, artist, composer, thinker, American musical visionary – occupies the most prominent podiums in orchestral and new music, and opera.  He is a champion of contemporary composers, and an ingenious programmer.  Robertson has served in numerous leadership positions, including Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a transformative 13-year tenure as St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Music Director, with Orchestre National de Lyon, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and, as protégé of Pierre Boulez, Ensemble InterContemporain.

In the 2024-25 season, Robertson celebrated the Boulez Centennial on four musical occasions, with The Juilliard Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, at the Aspen Music Festival and Lucerne Festival. He appears with the world’s great orchestras such as those of New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Cleveland; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester; and major ensembles and festivals on five continents.  

Since his 1996 Metropolitan Opera debut, Robertson has conducted a breathtaking range of Met projects, including the 2019 production premiere of Porgy and Bess, winning the Grammy Award, Best Opera Recording.  In 2022, he conducted its Met revival, and made his Rome Opera debut.  In the 2025-26 season, he returns to the St. Louis and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, to the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, HR-Sinfonieorchester, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, to the orchestras of Dallas, Leipzig, and Vancouver, and will conduct in Korea and Taiwan.

Robertson is The Juilliard School’s Director of Conducting Studies, Distinguished Visiting Faculty, and serves on the Tianjin Juilliard Advisory Council.  He concludes his three-year term this season as the inaugural Utah Symphony and Opera’s Creative Partner.  Robertson is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.