Miller Outdoor Theatre: Prokofiev Symphony No. 7

British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is principal guest conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, associate conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and music director of Birmingham Opera Company. Recent and forthcoming highlights include the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Houston, Seattle, and BBC Symphonies; Atlanta, National, Hallé, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras; Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; London Philharmonic Orchestra; and Accademia di Santa Cecilia.  

Alpesh enjoys collaborations with distinguished soloists such as Hilary Hahn, Nicola Benedetti, Colin Currie, Pablo Ferrández, Veronika Eberle, Ilya Gringolts, Benjamin Grosvenor, Stephen Hough, Johannes Moser, and Karen Cargill, among others. Following his outstanding debut in 2015, he was appointed principal conductor of Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma, Italy, and performed and recorded much of the great symphonic repertoire, including a complete cycle of Brahms’s symphonies.  

Birmingham Opera Company’s 2019 production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, directed by the late Sir Graham Vick, was a triumph and led to Alpesh being named Newcomer of the Year in the 2021 International Opera Awards. Other notable opera titles include Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, West Side Story, and Turandot.  

A keen advocate of music education for young people, Alpesh is a patron of Awards for Young Musicians, a UK charity supporting talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds on their musical journeys. He has also worked with ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and the symphony orchestra of the Royal Northern College of Music. He conducted the 2015 BBC Ten Pieces film, which brought the world of classical music into secondary schools across the United Kingdom and received a distinguished BAFTA award.  

Born in Birmingham, Alpesh studied cello under Eduardo Vassallo at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the RNCM to pursue the prestigious Master’s Conducting Course. He studied with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and was mentored by Andris Nelsons and Edward Gardner in his post as assistant conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2016. He was honored to receive an OBE in HRH The Queen’s New Year’s Honours in January 2022 for Services to the Arts. 

Growing up in New York City, Clayton Stephenson found musical inspiration in community programs. As he describes it, the “3rd Street Music School jump-started my music education; the Young People’s Choir taught me phrasing and voicing; the Juilliard Outreach Music Advancement Program introduced me to formal and rigorous piano training, which enabled me to get into Juilliard Pre-College; the Morningside Music Bridge validated my talent and elevated my self-confidence; the Boy’s Club of New York exposed me to jazz; and the Lang Lang Foundation brought me to stages worldwide and transformed me from a piano student to a young artist.”  

Clayton now studies in the Harvard-New England Conservatory dual degree program, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in economics at Harvard and a master’s degree in piano performance at the New England Conservatory under Wha Kyung Byun. His accolades along the way have been bountiful: his appearance at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was lauded for his “extraordinary narrative and poetic gifts” and performances that were “fresh, incisive and characterfully alive” (Gramophone), earning him a spot among the finalists. He has also been named a 2022 Gilmore Young Artist, 2017 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist, Gheens Young Artist, and Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation. He also took home a jury discretionary award at the 2015 Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and Festival.  

Recent and upcoming highlights of Clayton’s burgeoning career include appearances at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris; Kissinger Sommer Festival; BeethovenFest Bonn; Ravinia Festival; Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; Calgary Philharmonic; Chicago Sinfonietta; Colour of Music Festival; and the Fort Worth, Louisville, and North Carolina Symphony Orchestras. On the 69th U.N. Day, Clayton played with the International Youth Orchestra at the United Nations General Assembly Hall. He also appeared in the “GRAMMY® Salute to Classical Music” Concert at Carnegie’s Stern Auditorium.