Dennis Russell Davies

Dennis Russell Davies is an opera and orchestral conductor, pianist, and chamber musician whose work spans an extensive repertory from the Baroque to the newest music of our time. Widely considered one of the most innovative and adventurous conductors and programmers in classical music, he is known for his close working relationships with composers such as Luciano Berio, John Cage, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Arvo Pärt, and many others.

After early appointments as music director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and chief conductor of the American Composers Orchestra, which he led for 25 years, Davies moved to Europe as general music director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart and later of Opera Bonn. He subsequently led the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and the Basel Symphony Orchestra, and, during a long tenure in Linz, inaugurated the new Linzer Musiktheater in 2013 with the world premiere of Philip Glass and Peter Handke's Spuren der Verirrten and Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier.

He has been artistic director and principal conductor of the Filharmonie Brno since 2018 and principal conductor of the MDR Symphony Orchestra since 2020. Highlights of the 2025-26 season include a U.K. concert tour with the Filharmonie Brno, his return to the Staatsorchester Stuttgart, and Janáček's The Makropulos Affair at Opéra de Lille. In August 2025, he led Viktor Ullmann's The Emperor from Atlantis, composed in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II, at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz.

He has appeared with orchestras across the U.S. and Europe — including those of Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, and Cleveland — and has conducted more than 140 new opera productions at houses including the Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals, the Metropolitan Opera, and Opéra National de Paris. His discography includes the complete symphony cycles of Bruckner, Glass, Haydn, and Honegger, and extensive four-hand recordings with his wife and duo partner, Maki Namekawa, including Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, The Firebird, and Petrushka.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1944, Davies studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School and later taught at the University Mozarteum Salzburg and the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. Since 2009 he’s been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received Germany's Bundesverdienstkreuz, Austria's Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst, and the title Commandeur des Arts et Lettres from the French government.