Stephanie Childress

Conductor / Violin

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“Clarity, and in particular unity, also flows from the orchestra under the baton of Stephanie Childress, a seriously exciting (and unnervingly young) talent who conjures a lithe, supple and above all united sound from her instrumentalists, full of atmosphere, drama and poise.”
(operissima)

An extremely adaptable young musician, Stephanie Childress performs regularly as conductor, director, soloist and chamber musician. Her conducting highlights of the 2018/19 season have included her debut with the Chineke! Junior Orchestra for the Southbank’s Imagine Children’s Festival and a programme of Prokofiev and Brahms with the Cambridge University Sinfonia. She has also led a repertoire session with the London Symphony Orchestra and students from the Guildhall School of Music a part of the LSO Orchestral Artistry Scheme and she made a celebrated debut with a new orchestra she has founded, Orchestra Rheia, which gave a performance of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem in May 2019.

Last season Stephanie conducted Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 in the St John’s College Chapel as well as leading the Britten Sinfonia in a programme of Respighi and Piazzolla. She has also conducted a number of operatic productions; The Enchanted Island with the British Youth Opera, performances of Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia and his song cycle, Les Illuminations, at St. John’s College Cambridge, and Lennox Berkeley’s opera, A Dinner Engagement for the Cambridge University Opera Society.

Upcoming events include her BBC Proms debut as soloist at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the ‘Lost Words Prom’ with the Southbank Sinfonia and Jessica Cottis, also this summer she has been chosen as a participant of the internationally renowned conducting masterclasses led by Neeme and Paavo Järvi in Pärnu.

As a violinist Stephanie came to prominence through the 2016 & 2018 BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition, where she achieved Category Finalist in both. Continuing a strong relationship with the BBC she was recently interviewed by Petroc Trelawny on BBC Radio 3 for International Women’s Day; is one of the featured artists for Radio 3’s ‘Take Five’ series which focuses on five young artists who appear across the schedule for a day each over a week long period; and appears regularly on ‘In Tune’.

Alongside her studies at Cambridge University Stephanie play-directed the premiere of Tansy Davies’ Re-Greening whilst she was the leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and as part of their summer concert series. In the 2016/17 season Stephanie led the Balsom Ensemble, for trumpeter Alison Balsom’s tour of Germany and was appointed as the artistic director of the tenth Young Virtuosi Summer Classical Music Festival. She has also performed Bruch Concerto No.1 with Ben Gernon and the Cambridge University Orchestra in February 2018, the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Sinfonia of Cambridge and Howard Williams and most recently the Brahms Concerto for the Third Cambridge Brahms Festival in April 2019.

She has participated in conducting masterclasses with Sir Mark Elder, Sian Edwards, Neil Thompson, Nicolas Pasquet, Professor Colin Metters, Martyn Brabbins with the BBC NOW, and soloist accolades include prize-winner at the Sevenoaks Young Musician of the Year, the LSO String Academy Candide Award for Outstanding Performance and finalist in the String Category of the Royal Over-Seas League Competition.

Stephanie currently plays on an Italian violin made by Francesco Gobetti, Venice c 1710 under the tutelage of Pieter Schoeman, Leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

“Clarity, and in particular unity, also flows from the orchestra under the baton of Stephanie Childress, a seriously exciting (and unnervingly young) talent who conjures a lithe, supple and above all united sound from her instrumentalists, full of atmosphere, drama and poise. Childress’ command of her orchestra brings verve, bite and gravity to the score’s darker moments, while exulting merrily in its racier passages, and the sheer musicality of this production is another of its strengths.”

(Operissima, February 2018)

“Stephanie Childress, was both the conductor and the concert’s stand out performer. From the moment she entered the Chapel she commanded the orchestra with such poise and energy that it was truly impossible to believe she was only eighteen years of age. In a video played before the concert, St John’s’ Director of Music commented on some of the notable young conductors of the past, such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Sir Simon Rattle. Perhaps such heights too lie in wait for Childress, who successfully tackled what she described in her Twitter feed as “the gargantuan mass of music” that is Beethoven’s 9^th symphony.”

(Varsity, November 2017)

Stephanie Childress

Ed Milner

Lauren Pink

Thirteen HarrisonParrott artists appear in 2019 BBC Proms

HARRISONPARROTT IS DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE WORLDWIDE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF CONDUCTOR/VIOLINIST STEPHANIE CHILDRESS

Ed Milner

Lauren Pink