Dalia Stasevska

Dalia Stasevska’s charismatic and dynamic musicianship has established her as a conductor of exceptional versatility. Chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and artistic director to the International Sibelius Festival, Stasevska also holds the post of principal guest conductor of BBC Symphony Orchestra. She has made several appearances at the BBC Proms, including on the First Night of the 2023 Proms. 

In 2023-24, Stasevska guest conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and West Australian Symphony Orchestra. 

Recent engagements have included leading orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Last season, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, she embarked on a six-concert tour to Japan with soloists Sol Gabetta, Nicola Benedetti, and Roderick Williams. In spring 2024, Stasevska and the BBC Symphony Orchestra collaborated on a Total Immersion project focusing on American composer and performer Missy Mazzoli. Performing works of living composers is a core part of Stasevska’s programming; she and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra have presented works by Andrew Norman, Thomas Adès, Helen Grime, Kaija Saariaho, and Outi Tarkianen, to name a few. 

A passionate opera conductor, 2023 saw Stasevska’s highly successful debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in a revival of the iconic Peter Halls production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In previous seasons, she returned to Finnish National Opera and Ballet to conduct a double bill of Poulenc’s La voix humane and Weill’s Songs with Karita Mattila, as well as to Norske Opera to conduct Madama Butterfly and Lucia di Lammermoor. Other productions include Don Giovanni with Royal Swedish Opera, directed by Ole Anders Tandberg; The Cunning Little Vixen with Finnish National Opera; and Sebastian Fagerlund’s Höstsonaten at the 2018 Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, featuring Anne Sofie von Otter.

Her debut solo album "Dalia’s Mixtape" with the BBC Symphony Orchestra released in spring 2024 on Platoon features 10 tracks of some of the freshest sounds in contemporary music. The album comprises music by genre-bending composers such as Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw, Andrea Tarrodi, Noriko Koide, Judith Weir, and others. In June 2023, together with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and pianist Olli Mustonen, she released piano concertos by Einojuhani Rautavaara and Bohuslav Jan Martinů on BIS. 

Stasevska originally studied as a violinist and composer at the Tampere Conservatory and subsequently studied violin, viola, and conducting at the Sibelius Academy. As a conductor, her teachers include Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam. In December 2018, she had the honor of conducting the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm. She was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s conductor award in 2020, the Alfred Kordelin prize in 2022, and BBC Music Magazine’s personality of the year award in 2023.  

Stasevska was bestowed the Order of Princess Olga of the third degree by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in October 2020 for her significant personal contribution to developing international cooperation and strengthening the prestige of Ukraine internationally by popularizing its historical and cultural heritage. Since February 2022, she has actively been supporting Ukraine by raising donations to buy supplies for troops on the front line, and on a number of occasions delivering them herself.