Chloé van Soeterstède
Conductor
Principal Guest Conductor, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
"Brilliant...the conductor’s gifts of balance, attention, and acute musical sensibility were essential to the success of the Schumann."
Bachtrack
North American Representation
Chloé van Soeterstède is attracting the attention of orchestras across the globe for her intuitive, sensitive, expressive music-making and her commanding and positive presence on the podium. She is praised repeatedly for her attention to detail, her energy and enthusiasm, and efficiency in rehearsal. She is in demand across Europe, the UK and the US where she is forging some excellent relationships with orchestras and in October 2023 made a critically acclaimed debut in Australian/New Zealand. In March 2024, she was announced as the new Principal Guest Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 2024/25 on a four-year contract.
Highlights of Van Soeterstède’s 2023/24 season include debuts with the Philharmonia and Hallé, in Europe with the Bilbao Symphony, Norrköping Symphony and Lausanne Chamber orchestras, in the US with Colorado Springs Symphony and at Lincoln Center, New York, with the Orchestra Now and further afield with the Auckland Philharmonia, Melbourne and Adelaide Symphony orchestras. She will also return to the Orlando Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Gävle Symphony and RTVE Symphony (Madrid) orchestras. In recent seasons Van Soeterstède has conducted widely in the UK, France, Spain and Sweden in particular working with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Orchestre National de Lille, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and the GiOrquesta for a production with La Fura dels Baus at the Portaferrada Festival.
Soloists with whom she is working include Sergey Khachatryan, Colin Currie, Alena Baeva, Kian Soltani, Jess Gillam, Peter Moore and Tobias Feldmann. Van Soeterstède conducts a wide range of repertoire from Farrenc, Mayer, Beethoven and Mendelssohn through to Sibelius, Ravel and Prokofiev. In 2019 she conducted the world premiere of Benjamin Attahir's Syrian Voices in France, and regularly programmes works by contemporary composers such as Anna Clyne, Dani Howard, Roxanna Panufnik, Annamaria Kowalsky, Katarine Leyman and Anna Meredith.
At the 2019 Deutscher Diringentenpreis in Cologne she was awarded the Bärenreiter Prize for the best interpretation of a contemporary work, as well as Third Prize overall. In 2012 she founded the Arch Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra based in London, which has been applauded for its vibrant and boundless energy, its wide range of repertoire and its initiatives to build bridges between artists and audience. Van Soeterstède also loves to work with young musicians, and as such works regularly with specialist music schools and conservatoires across the UK. Van Soeterstède was born in 1988 in France.
After studying viola in Paris and then at the Royal Academy of Music, she studied conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music (2015-2017) with Clark Rundell and Mark Heron where she was awarded the Kennedy scholarship and was also supported by the Derek Hill Foundation. She was appointed the Taki Alsop Fellow 2019-21 by Marin Alsop and was a Dudamel Fellow with the LA Philharmonic in the 2021/22 season. In 2023, she was awarded as an Associate Member of the Royal Northern College of Music.