Conductor

Maestro Stephen Rogers Radcliffe continues to fulfill the promise recognized when he made his Lincoln Center conducting debut with Metropolitan Opera sopranos Jan DeGaetani, Susan Graham and Dawn Upshaw. Since then Mr. Radcliffe has conducted orchestras on four continents, produced compact disc recordings of operatic, orchestral, and chamber music works, and has fostered the development of audiences through innovative educational and artistic programs.

 Mr. Radcliffe has been Assistant Conductor of the Boston Lyric Opera, founder and Music Director of the New York Chamber Ensemble at Lincoln Center, Artistic Director of the Cape May Music Festival, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Hungarian Virtuosi. He has served as the Director of Orchestral and Operatic Activities at the University of Massachusetts and Music Director of the Five College Opera Project. He holds a degree in Music Education from the New England Conservatory and has led youth orchestra programs throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He also holds a Masters Degree in conducting from the University of Michigan and has studied at the Aspen and Tanglewood Music Centers as well as at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Sienna. His principal teachers include Gustav Meier, Leonard Bernstein and Franco Ferrara.

Stephen Rogers Radcliffe was the Harry and Mildred Bemis Endowed Fellow in Musicology at Brandeis University, Director of Orchestra and Opera Programs at the University of Massachusetts, and Assistant Conductor of the Boston Lyric Opera, and is the founder and Laureate Music Director of the New York Chamber Ensemble, which appeared regularly from 1987 to 1997 at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, as well as on recordings, radio broadcasts and international tours. As Principal Guest Conductor of the Hungarian Virtuosi, Maestro Radcliffe appeared regularly at the Franz Liszt Academy and Pest Vigado in Budapest, as well as on international tours, radio and television broadcasts and recordings.

Maestro Radcliffe has been recognized for his electrifying, musically acute performances, his passionate dedication to the nurturing of young talent and his innovative approach to audience development and artistic enrichment in the musical institutions with which he has served.

 In addition to leading the Thalia Symphony Orchestra, Stephen Rogers Radcliffe is currently Conductor and Music Director of the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, the largest youth symphony organization in the United States


Equally at home with symphony, ballet, opera and musical theater, he has conducted the major operatic works of Puccini and Verdi, and has led “Opera in the Park” performances for thousands of music lovers in New York City. From 1991-94, he annually led over 15 light opera performances as Music Director of the Blue Hill Troupe. The roster of internationally acclaimed artists appearing in concert with Maestro Radcliffe is both distinguished and varied, and includes performances with pianists Van Cliburn and Andre Watts, Metropolitan Opera stars Frederica von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham and Veronika Kinces, and pops artists the Moody Blues, Blood Sweat and Tears and P.D.Q Bach.

Guest conducting has taken him to leading orchestras throughout the United States, Canada, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latin America, Africa and China. He has also been widely heard in annual broadcasts over National Public Radio.

An enthusiastic advocate of the composers of our own time, he has commissioned and premiered works by the American masters John Corigliano, John Harbison, George Rochberg, Ned Rorem, Aaron J. Kernis and Joan Tower.