Praised for his “intense engagement and energy” (The Telegraph) and his “razor sharp” musical direction (Times Literary Supplement), conductor Stuart Stratford was appointed Music Director of Scottish Opera in 2015.
The 2025/26 season marked his tenth as Scottish Opera’s Music Director, and in the 2026/27 season he conducts Turandot and Madama Butterfly. In concert, he leads Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius.
Recent operatic highlights include the world premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s The Galloping Cure at the 2026 Edinburgh International Festival (since nominated for an International Opera Award), his house debut at State Opera South Australia, conducting Rossini’s La Cenerentola, the world premiere of Dai Fujikura and Harry Ross’s The Great Wave at Scottish Opera, Peter Grimes (Royal Danish Opera), Aida (Opera Australia), and Lucia di Lammermoor (English National Opera).
His recent work with Scottish Opera includes Tristan und Isolde, La Bohème, Don Pasquale, The Merry Widow, The Barber of Seville, La Traviata, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Don Giovanni, and a concert double bill of Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight, Stravinsky’s Mavra, as well as the world premiere of Stuart MacRae’s Anthropocene, the European premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, and filmed productions of L’elisir d’amore and Hansel and Gretel.
In the UK Stratford has conducted for English National Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Opera Holland Park, Birmingham Opera Company, Edinburgh International Festival and Buxton Festival, with a wide breadth of repertoire including La Fanciulla del West, Tosca, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Falstaff, Rigoletto, Giovanna d’Arco, , Orfeo ed Euridice, Eugene Onegin, Iolanta, The Queen of Spades, La forza del Destino, Khovanshchina, Jenůfa, Katya Kabanova, Faust, The Turn of the Screw, Satyagraha, Candide, and Jonathan Dove’s Swanhunter, L’altra Euridice and Tobias and the Angel. Beyond the UK, he has worked at Finnish National Opera (Doctor Atomic); Theater St. Gallen (Un ballo in Maschera); with Estonian National Opera at the Birgitta Festival (Faust), and in Hong Kong (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
Beyond his opera work, Stratford has established a strong reputation as an orchestral conductor, and has directed orchestras and ensembles including the London Philharmonic Orchestra; BBC Philharmonic; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; City of London Sinfonia; Manchester Camerata; Viva Sinfonia; Remix Ensemble; and Ural Symphony Orchestra in Yekaterinburg where he gave the Russian premiere of Momentum (Turnage) and Airport Scenes (Dove).
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The Galloping Cure, Scottish Opera
Edinburgh International Festival, August 2026 (World Premiere)
Conductor Stuart Stratford draws a powerful performance from the Scottish Opera Orchestra, even more so from the busy ensemble, whose commitment and collective diction is outstanding.
Clive Paget, The Guardian
La Cenerentola
State Opera South Australia, May 2026
"Stuart Stratford conducted the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in a very smooth rendition of the overture, keeping up an excellent pace throughout."
Sandra Bowdler, Bachtrack
"Musically, this production is superbly directed by British conductor Stuart Stratford. Under his baton, the ASO is supremely light-footed and well-drilled. Clearly, Stratford, on loan from Scottish Opera, is an expert in Italian repertoire. Rock solid with tempo, he keeps the steadiest flow even when things get torturous. Some of Cinderella’s ensembles and choruses are extremely testing, and Stratford keeps the singers together like glue."
Graham Strahle, InDaily South Australia
"... under musical director Stuart Stratford, the orchestra was in superb form, especially the wind and string sections."
Brett Allen-Bayes, Limelight Arts
"The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is beautifully balanced and under the assured baton of guest conductor Stuart Stratford the singers are supported and complemented without ever being dominated."
Kym Clayton, The Barefoot Review
The Merry Widow
Scottish Opera and Opera Holland Park, June 2025
"warm, stylish playing from the orchestra of Scottish Opera under Stuart Stratford"
The Guardian
"Stuart Stratford conducts and again, he never wallows, with the orchestra making enthusiastic love to some of the silkiest textures and most seductive woodwind countermelodies in all of operetta"
The Spectator
"Stuart Stratford and his orchestra brought Lehár’s lively and rich score to life wonderfully"
Seen and Heard International
"Stratford drew a glossy, luxurious sound from the band, intense and syrupy in the overture, effervescent and frothy elsewhere"
Bachtrack
Don Pasquale
Scottish Opera, October 2024
"Stuart Stratford conducted with enthusiasm, his players responding with a rousingly effervescent performance with fine woodwind and brass solos"
Bachtrack
"The orchestra under Stuart Stratford was magnificent, especially in the delightful passages by the solo trombone of Cillian Ó Ceallacháin and the cornett of Andrew Connell-Smith in Act II evincing all the evocative colours of bel canto opera’"
Seen and Heard International
Oedipus Rex
Scottish Opera, August 2024
"Conducted by Stuart Stratford, the orchestra was terrific, keeping the dramatic momentum with pinpoint sharp woodwind and percussion with visceral brass"
Bachtrack
"…the orchestra, which is conducted by Scottish Opera’s music director Stuart Stratford and gives a magnificently dramatic account of Stravinsky’s often austere neo-classical score."
The Guardian
La Traviata
Scottish Opera, May 2024
Conductor Stuart Stratford brings out a good balance from the Orchestra of Scottish Opera between those ebullient party scenes and the intimate moments when the singers are alone on stage, ensuring that the vocal element is always paramount.
Thom Dibdin, The Stage ★★★★
In the pit, Stuart Stratford drove the music along with a keen ear for balance, the woodwinds having a great night. Verdi's score burst with exuberance
David Smythe, Bachtrack ★★★★
... the other consistently good part of the evening was the playing of Scottish Opera’s orchestra, finding colour and inspiration in a score that can suffer from over-familiarity. Stuart Stratford conducts them straightforwardly but clearly and, like McVicar’s production, he lets the drama flow naturally.
Simon Thompson, The Times ★★★
The orchestra of Scottish Opera, under the baton of Stuart Stratford, performs Verdi’s famous score with all the necessary heft and nuance. Dynamic, intelligent and emotionally scintillating, this seems sure to be a celebrated revival.
Mark Brown, The National
Daphne
Scottish Opera, September 2023
“Scottish Opera’s orchestra, who don’t get to play Strauss very often and seem to relish being let loose on this score. From the gently purling winds of the opening, through the Apollonian climaxes, to the rippling translucence of the final transformation scene, they sounded sensational in every aspect, and their music director, Stuart Stratford, conducted them with a keen ear for balance and shape.”
Simon Thompson, The Times ★★★★
“Stratford’s direction of the incremental unfolding of Daphne’s final transformation was flawless.”
Keith Bruce, The Guardian ★★★★
Il Trittico
Scottish Opera, March 2023
“This is a supremely professional ensemble show, with the Scottish Opera Orchestra in total command of Puccini’s orchestration under Stuart Stratford’s firm conducting.“
Nicholas Kenyon, The Telegraph ★★★★★
“… Stuart Stratford stoked up the orchestra and Puccini’s music swelled.”
David Smythe, Bachtrack ★★★★★
“Conductor Stuart Stratford and the orchestra delivered Puccini’s glittering score with relish and aplomb. You might have to kill for a ticket.”
Susan Nickalls, The Scotsman ★★★★★
“The orchestra plays with terrific dramatic colour, and Stuart Stratford conducts with a keen sense of the organic ebb and flow in each drama.”
Simon Thompson, The Times ★★★★
“The very large orchestra in the pit, under the baton of Music Director Stuart Stratford is on stellar form, and the conductor’s balancing of the vast instrumental forces with the singers is pretty much perfect.”
Keith Bruce, The Herald ★★★★
Ainadamar
Scottish Opera / October-November 2022
“Golijov’s score is a collage of influences, shifting fluidly from flamenco and electronic music to the classical language of 19th-century opera all soaked in the vibrant musical colour of Spain, deftly captured by the Orchestra of Scottish Opera and conductor Stuart Stratford”
Rowena Smith, The Guardian ★★★★
“Conductor Stuart Stratford and the orchestra have never sounded better, conjuring up hypnotic flamenco rhythms edged with bold woodwind and brass and Klezmer and Mariachi influences."
Susan Nickalls, Opera Now
“The aesthetic conflict is captivating. A guttural scene-setting drone emerges from the luxuriously populated Scottish Opera Orchestra under conductor Stuart Stratford, loaded with additional percussion, ample brass and Spanish guitar. The action emerging from the darkened stage, mostly contained within a circular glistening string curtain on which projected images are a magical amplification of the narrative, is a triumph of synthesis.”
Ken Walton, The Scotsman ★★★★★
“…The orchestra is on glittering form under the ever-adept baton of Stuart Stratford, capturing the music’s multifaceted ebbs and flows…”
Miranda Heggie, The Arts Desk ★★★★★
“…and while your enjoyment of Golijov’s music (warmly played and tightly paced under the baton of Stuart Stratford) will depend upon your personal tolerance threshold for flamenco guitars and sultry trumpet solos, this production is about more than the music: it’s a total (and often gripping) theatrical experience.”
Richard Bratby, The Spectator
“Both were excellent singers and were backed up by a good ensemble of singers and dancers and the orchestra under the baton of conductor Stuart Stratford who brought the work vividly to life.”
Hugh Kerr, Edinburgh Music Review
“Under music director Stuart Stratford, a virile Scottish Opera Orchestra, spiced with dazzling onstage Spanish guitar (Ian Watt) and traditional cajón (percussionist Stuart Semple), are the chief energisers in this riveting presentation.”
Ken Walton, VoxCarnyx
“WHEN he was brought on stage at the curtain call by Scottish Opera Music Director Stuart Stratford and production director Deborah Colker, Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov looked suitably delighted with what he had just witnessed.”
Keith Bruce, The Herald ★★★★★
Don Giovanni
Scottish Opera, May 2022
Stuart Stratford's conducting adds both drive and lightness
Thom Dibdin, The Stage ****
Under Stuart Stratford, the company’s music director, the orchestra plays Mozart’s score with terrific bite
Simon Thompson, The Times ****
...the Scottish Opera orchestra – under the baton of Stuart Stratford – has a tremendous grasp of the deft, dramatic interplay between Mozart’s music and Lorenzo Da Ponte’s vibrant libretto.
Mark Brown, The Telegraph ****
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