Jonathon Heyward is forging a career as one of the most exciting conductors on the international scene. He currently serves as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, having made his debut with the BSO in March 2022 in three performances that included their first-ever performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15. In summer 2024, Jonathon became Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center. This appointment followed a highly acclaimed Lincoln Center debut with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in summer 2022, as part of their Summer for the City festival. In 2025, it was announced that he will continue as the Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center through 2029, now with the added title and role of Artistic Director.
Most recently, Jonathon completed his four-year tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. In summer 2021, he took part in an intense, two-week residency with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain which led to a highly acclaimed BBC Proms debut. According to The Guardian, Jonathon delivered “a fast and fearless performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, in which loud chords exploded, repeating like fireworks in the hall’s dome, and the quietest passages barely registered. It was exuberant, exhilarating stuff.”
Jonathon’s recent and future guest conducting highlights in the United Kingdom include debuts and re-invitations with the London Philharmonic, London Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Academy of Music, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. In continental Europe this season, Jonathon makes distinguished debuts with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester and Danish National Symphony. Successful European highlights of recent seasons included collaborations with the Castilla y León Symphony, Galicia Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, and MDR-Leipzig Symphony.
In high demand in the USA, and in addition to his Music Director positions, Jonathon conducts prominent orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Seattle, Dallas, and St Louis symphonies, and the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2021, Jonathon made his Wolf Trap debut conducting the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, and in 2023 he made his debut with the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival.
Equally at home on the opera stage, Jonathon made his Royal Opera House debut with Hannah Kendall’s Knife of Dawn, having also conducted a Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’s new opera, Wake, in a production by Graham Vick for the Birmingham Opera Company.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Jonathon began his musical training as a cellist at the age of ten and started conducting while still at school. He studied conducting at the Boston Conservatory of Music, where he became assistant conductor of the prestigious institution’s opera department and of the Boston Opera Collaborative, and he received postgraduate lessons from Sian Edwards at London’s Royal Academy of Music. Before leaving the Academy, he was appointed assistant conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, where he was mentored by Sir Mark Elder, and became Music Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra. In 2023, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music; an honour reserved for Academy alumni.
Jonathon’s commitment to education and community outreach work deepened during his three years with the Hallé and flourished during his post as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. He is equally committed to including new music within his imaginative concert programs.
