Biography

Daniel Stewart is the Music Director of the Santa Cruz Symphony, and former Assistant Conductor with The Metropolitan Opera. Winner of the Aspen Music Festival’s Conlon Conducting Prize and a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Mr. Stewart has conducted orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Hessischer Rundfunk Orchester, Frankfurt Opern Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the Saint-Louis Symphony. In 2012 Mr. Stewart was invited by James Levine to become the first conductor of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, where he made his acclaimed Lincoln Center debut in a concert of comic operas by Stravinsky, Mozart, Donizetti and Berlioz. Mr. Stewart’s first three seasons in Santa Cruz have led to unprecedented critical acclaim, including the Peninsula Reviews’ assertion that “the Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Stewart has now developed into the finest musical ensemble South of San Francisco and North of Los Angeles.”

Daniel Stewart’s compositions have been performed at venues including the Aspen Music Festival, Tribeca New Music Festival, and Verbier Festival. As a violist, Mr. Stewart has concertized frequently as soloist, served as principal violist of numerous ensembles, and toured extensively in over 40 countries.