Ward Stare

Resident Conductor and Music Director of the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra (SLSYO)

At the invitation of Music Director David Robertson, young American conductor Ward Stare will assume the post of Resident Conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and concurrently act as Music Director of the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra beginning in the fall of the 2008-09 season.  Mr. Stare is currently the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Fellow, having been appointed by Esa-Pekka Salonen in the fall of 2007.

Mr. Stare is the recipient of both the Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize (2006) and the Aspen Conducting Prize (2007) at the Aspen Music Festival and will return in the summer of 2008 as Assistant Conductor to the Festival and its Music Director, David Zinman.

In August 2007, Mr. Stare made his critically acclaimed debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at the famed Blossom Music Center followed by concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on both the Philharmonic's Toyota Symphonies for Youth and Neighborhood Concert Series.  This past season also included appearances with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, both in Moscow and on the orchestra's 2007 North American Tour, as well as a special performance with the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra as part of the Orchestra's "Great Artists of the World" series to celebrate the 80th birthday of the King of Thailand.

Upcoming highlights include appearances this summer with the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra at the Festival del Sole in Napa Valley, and concerts throughout next season with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.  In the spring of 2009, Mr. Stare will make his debut with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester in Berlin, Germany, as second conductor with Sir Andrew Davis In Ives’ Symphony No. 4. 

Mr. Stare studied conducting with David Zinman, Janos Furst, and Jorma Panula as well as working with Michel Merlet in composition and musical analysis. 

Following in the path of many great orchestral conductors whose careers began as instrumentalists, Mr. Stare was trained as a trombonist at the Juilliard School in Manhattan.  At the age of 18, he was appointed principal trombonist of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and has performed as an orchestral musician with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, among others.  As a soloist, he has concertized in both the US and Europe.