Simon Hewett

Simon Hewett is one of the world's leading ballet conductors and regularly works as a guest conductor with the most prestigious ballet companies. From 2008 to 2023, he was Principal Conductor of the Hamburg
Ballet and from 2010 to 2018, Principal Conductor of the Stuttgart Opera.

Simon Hewett studied conducting, piano, and clarinet at the University of Queensland. At 19, he was the
youngest finalist in a national conducting competition, the ABC Young Conductor of the Year Competition.
In 1998, he received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and continued his
conducting studies at the Franz Liszt School of Music in Weimar.

From 2002 to 2005, Hewett worked as Assistant Conductor at Opera Australia in Sydney. He made his
Sydney Opera House debut in 2003 with Bizet's "Les Pêcheurs de perles", followed by performances of "Il
Barbiere di Siviglia," "Tosca," and "Turandot." In 2008, he conducted a revival of Harry Kupfer's acclaimed
production of "Otello," and in 2009, he conducted new productions of "Aida" and "Così fan tutte." In 2011,
he conducted "Macbeth" for Opera Australia and "Falstaff" for the West Australian Opera in Perth. In 2012, he conducted two new productions for Opera Australia, "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Salome".

In 2005, Simone Young offered the young conductor the position of Kapellmeister and Assistant General
Music Director at the Hamburg State Opera. Since his debut that same year with "La Traviata," Simon
Hewett has conducted a broad opera and ballet repertoire and over 500 performances in Hamburg. In
2008, he made his debut at the Komische Oper Berlin in a production of "The Barber of Seville." In 2010, he
conducted "The Abduction from the Seraglio" at the same opera.

He made his debut with the Stuttgart Opera in 2010 with "The Flying Dutchman," after which he was
offered the position of First Kapellmeister, a position he held until 2018. In 2009, he made his debut with
the Ballet de l'Opera de Paris, and in 2012, he conducted at the Vienna State Opera for the first time. Since 2016 he has regularly appeared as a guest conductor with the Ballet of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, for the first time, and since 2023, he has performed every year with the Balletto del Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

The close collaboration with John Neumeier and with the Hamburg Ballet has for many years been Hewett's
most important artistic relationship. Hewett first conducted the Hamburg Ballet in 2006, when Neumeier
entrusted him with the premiere of "Parzival" at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Since then, Hewett has
conducted numerous performances and revivals of Neumeier classics in Hamburg and accompanied the
Hamburg company on numerous tours. He has conducted premieres of many new Neumeier ballets,
including "Orpheus," "Liliom," "Tatiana," "Duse," "A Song of the Earth," "Anna Karenina," and "The Glass
Menagerie." He has also conducted the season-closing "Nijinsky Gala" at the Hamburg Ballet since 2009.