The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra has appointed 32-year-old American conductor Ryan Bancroft as its chief conductor, with his tenure beginning in the 2023/24 season.
The young conductor made his debut with the orchestra in 2019, having risen to fame the previous year, when he won first prize and the audience prize at the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen. He also currently holds the role of principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and won this year’s Royal Philharmonic Society Conductor Award for his work with the orchestra in the UK so far.
He takes over from Sakari Oramo, who stepped down as chief conductor earlier this year, having been in the role since 2008. Like Bancroft, Oramo also holds a position at a BBC orchestra. He will continue as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra until the end of the BBC Proms season in 2023.
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Bancroft’s first concert with the orchestra will be the Nobel Prize Concert on Wednesday 8 December, which will be available to watch on the Nobel Prize YouTube channel. ‘In my inaugural concert as chief conductor we will perform the prominent Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström’s seminal work, The High Mass, for the first time in the orchestra’s history,’ says Bancroft.
Read all our Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra reviews here.