Matthew Straw appointed in Strasbourg

Matthew Straw has been appointed Assistant Conductor at Opéra national du Rhin’s Opera Studio for the coming season and will conduct performances of The Tales of Hoffmann at the Opéra de Reims in February 2025. Predecessors in the role include Furtwängler, Klemperer and Szell.

Straw is currently Assistant Conductor of the Utah Symphony and in recent seasons has conducted the Rochester Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Aspen Music Festival and Des Moines Metro Opera. He has also assisted leading conductors such as Donald Runnicles, Cristian Macelaru and Kazushi Ono, working with the Brussels Philharmonic, ORF-Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony and Salzburg Festival.

He was selected for the prestigious Järvi Academy at the age of 20 and was the youngest ever recipient of a Solti Foundation Career Assistance Award in 2022, awarded again in 2023 and 2024.

A polymath, he took a double degree at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, with a BA in Philosophy and a BM in Conducting, Piano and Voice, and subsequently graduated from Eastman School of Music with an MM degree in conducting.

He also trained in ballet and his formative musical experiences came while performing his parents’ choirs. In a Maestro Arts interview, he said of singing: ‘Coming from a background that’s so integrally vocal, I find that everything imitates the voice. I make sure I’ve sung everything that I can in a piece. If I haven’t done that, I don’t have a sense of how I’d like everything to be phrased. It’s only from imitating it that I have a real concept of how everything is supposed to sound. There’s something about singing that forces you to listen so you can find the right way.’

His new website has just gone live at www.matthewstraw.com.