2013-2014 – sixteen countries, three continents!

Each new orchestral season is a musical journey that holds music lovers in thrall for most of a calendar year. For Stéphane Denève, his epic, globe-spanning 2013-14 season began on 19th September 2013 in the Liedershalle, Suttgart – the ‘opening night’ of the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra season. And his ten month journey concludes on 25th July 2014, in the same hall.

In total, Stéphane conducted his orchestra, the SWR RSO for twenty five concerts, at home in Stuttgart and on tour. But this is only one part of a much bigger picture: Stéphane’s concerts with the SWR RSO represented only one third of the total number of concerts he took part over this season!

Continents, Cities and Nations

Over the duration of ten months, Stéphane Denève travelled to sixteen countries across three continents – Europe, North American and Asia!

The map below shows the thirty cities that he directed twenty different orchestras in:

Of course, the place Stéphane conducted in most frequently is his home city of Stuttgart, where he conducted sixteen concerts. But as you can see on the map above, the SWR RSO Stutgart also travelled widely, giving concerts in Aalen and Mannheim (Germany) and in France, Spain, Russia, England and Scotland.

In total, Denève gave forty six concerts in Europe in 2013-14.

Music lovers in North America enjoyed Stéphane Denève conducting some of the continent’s top orchestras over the course of twenty five concerts in the season and, in Asia, Stéphane conducted three concerts: two concerts in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and one in Seoul, South Korea.

Orchestras and Opera Companies

Of the twenty ensembles that Stéphane Denève conducted in 2013-14, seven were North American: two concerts with the St Louis Symphony, five  performances with the Boston Symphony and two concerts in Canada, with the Toronto Symphony. In the latter half of the season he conducted on both coasts of America – five concerts in Chicago and Philadelphia and three each in Seattle and Los Angeles.

Stéphane’s European season saw him conduct eleven orchestras in 2013-14: the Brussels Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia,  Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and, of course, the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Composers and their music

In the year, Stéphane Denève conducted two world premieres by James Macmillan and Bart Visman, and in fact music by five living composers: Patrick Harlin, John Williams, James MacMillan, Bart Visman and Guillaume Connesson. He also paid tribute to the late Henri Dutilleux, who died in May 2013, performing his Métaboles, Tout un monde Lointain and Symphony No1.

In all, Stéphane’s season consisted of at least seventy two different pieces of music. Although Stéphane Denève has a fine international reputation for his interpretations of French works, the majority of repertoire to be performed was drawn from outside of France (fifteen Russian, twelve German; and music from America, the UK, Italy, Finland, Hungary and the Netherlands).

He conducted Prokofiev’s Suite from Love for Three Oranges no less than nine times this year, in three different countries (Germany, the Netherlands and the USA).

You can browse all the repertoire for the year in Stéphane’s Concert Calendar.

Instrumentalists and Singers

In 2013-14 Stéphane Denève once again worked with the world’s great musicians, appearing with twenty six soloists. Here is a gallery of the instrumentalists. How many do you recognise without hearing?

Violinists

Pianists

Cellists

Singers