Markus Stenz is Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2012) and Principal Guest Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from the 2015/2016 season onwards. Trained at the School of Music in Cologne and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, he was Principal Conductor of the London Sinfonietta (1994-1998), Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (1998 – 2004) and General Music Director of the City of Cologne and Gürzenich-Kapellmeister (2003-2014). 

Stenz made his debut as an opera conductor at La Fenice in Venice and has since conducted many world premieres and first performances including Henze’s Das Verratene Meer (Berlin), Venus und Adonis (Munich) and L’Upupa (Salzburg Festival). Markus Stenz has appeared at many of the world’s major opera houses including La Scala (Milan), La Monnaie (Brussels), Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Stuttgart Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera Munich, State Opera Hamburg, Frankfurt Opera, and festivals such as Glyndebourne, Edinburgh, Bregenz and Salzburg. 

Markus Stenz conducts many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Berlin Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the most prominent German radio orchestras. In the United States, he worked with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. This season Stenz, Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music, will conduct all over the world, from São Paulo to Shanghai, among others with the German premiere of a Cello Concerto by Pascal Dusapin.