Nathalie Stutzmann

“Best Conductor of the Year” at the 2024 Oper! Awards, Nathalie Stutzmann is the Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 2022 and only the second woman in history to lead a major American orchestra. She is also the Principal Guest Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra since 2021.

Proclaimed “probably the most important conductor of our time” by Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nathalie made big news in the opera pit in 2023 with her spectacular debuts in Wagner’s Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival. BR Klassik observed having “never experienced such a standing ovation at a pit debut in Bayreuth”, while Oper Magazin described Nathalie as a true possessor of “the Bayreuth gene”, Abendzeitung München “a revelation” and Die Süddeutsche Zeitung “a wonder”. She also made “a splashy debut” and “the coup of the year” for The New York Times with her unanimously acclaimed double debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

During the 2023/24 season, she will lead the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in twelve different programs featuring composers from her favorite repertoire including Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Wagner, Schumann, Mahler, Strauss, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Verdi and Ravel. Highlights include a “Bruckner festival” to celebrate the composer’s 200th anniversary, collaborations with soloists such as Renée Fleming, Maria João Pires and Daniil Trifonov, and recording projects for Warner/Erato are planned. Nathalie and the ASO will also embark on their first tour in California.

With The Philadelphia Orchestra, she will lead a two weeks program of Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart, and will do her conducting debut at the legendary Carnegie Hall.

As a guest conductor, the 2023/24 season will see Nathalie’s debut with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Teatro Regio Torino for a production of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer, and a symphonic concert. She will return to the London Symphony Orchestra for a Bruckner celebration week. The Paris Philharmonie will have a special focus on Nathalie  during the whole season: she will appear with the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse and also chair the jury for the La Maestra Conducting Competition. During summer 2024 she will be back to Bayreuth Festival.

Awarded the 2023 Opus Klassik “Concert Recording of the Year” for her recording of Glière and Mosolov Harp concertos with Xavier de Maistre and WDR Sinfonieorchester, Nathalie also released in 2022 the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recorded with Haochen Zhang and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Gramophone praised it as a “a brilliant collaboration that I urge you to not miss” and Classics Today as a “modern reference version”. She is an exclusive recording artist of Warner/Erato.

Nathalie Stutzmann started her studies at a very young age in piano, bassoon, cello and studied conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula.

Recognized for her significant contribution to the arts, Nathalie was named “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur”, France’s highest honour ; and “Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government.

She has previously been one of the most famous contralto voices which can be experienced on a great number of recordings.