BY KAREN BOSSICK
A 23-year-old conductor who grew up in Britain and France has been named associate conductor of the Sun Valley Music Festival, which will celebrate its 39th summer season July 30-Aug. 24.
Stephanie Childress, who is concluding her time as associate conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, will take the place of Sameer Patel, who was recently appointed the new Artistic Director of the San Diego Youth Symphony.
Patel had been associate conductor of the Sun Valley Music Festival for six years.
Childress, who also has been serving as music director of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra since 2021, has been likened to other notable young conductors of the past, including Sir John Eliot Gardiner and her mentor Sir Simon Rattle.
Her musicianship and command of symphony and operatic repertoire has made her a rising star in the classical music world on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, this year she will conduct the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, New World Symphony and Konzerthausorchester Berlin.
The daughter of an American father and a French-Vietnamese mother, Childress grew up listening to the pop and rock music of Queen and Tina Turner. But she became captivated by classical music while watching the British-born violinist Nigel Kennedy perform Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” She began taking piano lessons, switching to violin a few months later.
Childress caught the eyes of the classical musical world when she became a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 2016 and 2018. She made her Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall with the Southbank Sinfonia and performed alongside the BBC Scotty Symphony Orchestra at Glasgow’s Proms in the Park.
After winning second prize at the 2020 La Maestra International competition, she was invited to conduct major opera companies and orchestras throughout the world, including the Paris Mozart Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic.
The multi-lingual conductor, who speaks English, French, Russian, German and Italian, has served as associate conductor with Opera de Paris, English National Opera and at the Glyndebourne Festival. She was the principal conductor of the London Lawyers’ Symphony Orchestra during its 2019/20 season.
“Stephanie is a prodigiously gifted musician and an immensely thoughtful artist with an impressively wide range of interests,” said the Sun Valley Music Festival’s Artistic Director Alasdair Neale. “I eagerly look forward to our collaboration and know that she will be given the warmest of Sun Valley welcomes.”
Neale isn’t the only one singing her praises. Mark Valencia of “Bachtrack” once noted that her “elegant self-possession on the podium was reflected in interpretations that bore the stamp of a symphonic mind and consistently favored musical honesty over sonic effect.”
“No infantilizing descriptor such as ‘prodigy’ properly captures Childress’ outsized talent,” said Benjamin Torbert of KDHX in St. Louis. “Her ‘multipotentialite’ youth has seen her speed past obstacles the seniors enjoy placing in their juniors’ way.”
Music fans can check out her YouTube video, in which she conducted Jean Sibelius’ “En Saga, Op. 9,” piece with the London Symphony Orchestra. She wore a black suit with a white blouse, a lock of dark hair bouncing on her forehead, a smile on her face, her eyes almost dreamy as she led musicians situated in the balcony and on the floor to a vivacious crescendo.
Childress will make her Sun Valley Music Festival debut this summer, conducting works during the Aug. 4, 10, 14 and 17 concerts. A fierce proponent of music education, she will work with students at the Festival’s Music Institute summer workshops, conducting the Advanced Chamber Orchestra on Aug. 11 at the Sun Valley Pavilion
She also will host Pre-Concert Chats before some of the summer performances at the Pavilion.
Sun Valley Music Festival concerts are admission-free, except for the Aug. 8 fundraising Gala Concert, which will feature pianists Michael Feinstein and Jean-Yves Thibaudet in “Two Pianos: Who Could Ask for Anything More?” Gala sales open to the public on Wednesday, April 19 at https://www.svmusicfestival.org/ or at 208-622-5607.