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Award-winning conductor Benjamin Northey is in constant demand as a guest conductor of the Australian state symphony orchestras and is currently Principal Conductor of the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.  In addition to his extensive symphonic repertoire, Northey’s professional experience spans opera, ballet and contemporary music.  Winner of the 2001 Symphony Australia Young Conductor of the Year Competition, he studied under John Hopkins, Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam at the Sibelius Academy and Stockholm Royal Academy of Music.

In 2007/8, Northey was selected from an international field to the prestigious International Conductor’s Academy of the Allianz Cultural Foundation.  This elite program involved a year-long mentorship with both the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductors Christoph von Dohnanyi and Vladimir Jurowsky culminating in a critically acclaimed performance of Stravinsky’s Symphony in C in June 2008 at London’s Royal Festival Hall.  “…an engrossing and revealing performance…” Classical Source.

In 2006, he conducted the Futurum Ensemble Sinfonietta in a concert of music by Salvatore Sciarrino for the Stockholm New Music festival and toured Sweden with the Sodra Halsinglands Orkesterforenings. He has assisted Leif Segerstam in Latvia with the Leipaja Symphony Orchestra and in Austria with the Graz Symphony Orchestra.  In 2005 Northey conducted the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg.

Northey enjoys a close relationship with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra after making his professional debut with them in 2003 conducting Beethoven Symphony No 6.  “Northey is a born conductor, one who revels in his work…conducting from memory he showed a mastery of the work.” The Age. From 2009, he takes on a new role as Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony’s Education Program.

Northey debuted with the State Opera South Australia in 2007 with Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore and returns in 2009 to conduct Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann.  In 2008, he conducted Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld and Peter Maxwell Davies Eight Songs for a Mad King for Monash University.  Also in 2008, he made his ballet debut with The Queensland Ballet conducting Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Northey was a recipient of the 2003 Brian Stacey Memorial Trust Award under patron Sir Charles Mackerras for emerging Australian conductors and also the 2001 Nelly Apt Scholarship for studies in Israel.  In 2007, he was awarded Australia’s Limelight Magazine award for Best Newcomer in any field of classical music and in 2008 won Limelight’s Best Classical Recording for Slava and Leonard Grigoryan’s CD Baroque Guitar Concerti with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.  He currently records for ABC Classics.