Nathalie Stutzmann to serve 3 more years as ASO’s music director
Nathalie Stutzmann, music director for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will continue in her role through the 2028-29 season, the orchestra announced today in a press release.
In 2022, Stutzmann became only the second woman in history to lead a major American orchestra, following Marin Alsop, who became music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007.
A French conductor and contralto with a long list of international accolades, Stutzmann is in her fourth season as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s music director.
The 2025-26 season launched this fall with a special performance in September featuring superstar pianist Lang Lang, followed by Stutzmann’s season concert debut Oct. 3. Nov. 13-16, she will lead the orchestra in its completion of the Beethoven Project by performing Beethoven’s Ninth and final symphony.
In her three, going on four, seasons with the orchestra, Stutzmann has achieved several milestones, including the Beethoven Project, leading the ensemble’s first weeklong domestic tour in more than a decade and hiring 17 new musicians.
In 2024, she also released her first recording with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as part of a new exclusive recording contract she signed with Warner Classics/Erato. The recording of Antonin Dvořák compositions was her first purely orchestral recording and the orchestra’s first major-label album in more than a decade. It earned Stutzmann a Gramophone magazine cover feature and Opus Klassik nominations for Best Conductor and Best Symphonic Recording of the Year.
“Nathalie’s impact on the ASO has already been significant,” said executive director Jennifer Barlament in a press release. “Her international profile has raised awareness of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra worldwide, and Nathalie’s expressive approach has resulted in dynamic performances that excite our audiences.”
Stutzmann is the orchestra’s fifth music director. She succeeded Robert Spano, who led the Atlanta musicians for 20 years before stepping down at the end of the 2021-22 season. Previous Atlanta Symphony Orchestra music directors include Henry Sopkin, Robert Shaw and Yoel Levi.
The orchestra presents more than 150 concerts each year, including the flagship Delta Classical Series, movies in concert, family concerts, the Coca-Cola Holiday Series and numerous community and educational performances. The orchestra also regularly performs with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, founded by Robert Shaw, which has been featured on nine of the orchestra’s 27 Grammy Award-winning recordings.
Stutzmann said extending her time with the ensemble is both “a joy and an inspiration.”
“Over the past seasons, the orchestra and I have built a strong artistic bond, rooted in trust, curiosity and the shared love of discovery,” she said in the press release. “The Orchestra’s sound and expressivity is developing beautifully and together we will keep pushing artistic boundaries, bringing fresh energy to the great major repertoire, and sharing the spirit of Atlanta through our music.”
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