David Stern

He is the founder and director of Opera Fuoco, the Paris-based international opera company and young artist program dedicated to lyric repertoire from the mid- 18th century to the present, chief conductor of the Palm Beach Opera in Florida, artistic adviser and chief conductor of the Shanghai Baroque Festival and director of the newly founded Heifetz Baroque Program in Staunton Virginia. Since its inaugural season he has been the co-chair of the jury of the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition. Stern’s repertoire ranges from the mainstream to the eclectic. As music director of the Israel, St. Gallen and Palm Beach Opera houses, he championed works such as Simone Mayr's Medea, Berg's Wozzeck, Britten’s Turn of the Screw and Weill's Mahagonny as well as Mozart, Strauss and P