Benjamin Northey
Conductor
Australian conductor Benjamin Northey is the Chief Conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Conductor in Residence of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Principal Guest Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In 2025, he was appointed Professor of Conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Director of the Australian Conducting Academy.
Northey studied conducting at Finland's Sibelius Academy with Professors Leif Segerstam and Atso Almila, after being accepted as the highest placed applicant in 2002. He completed his studies at the Stockholm Royal College of Music with Jorma Panula in 2006.
Northey appears regularly as a guest conductor with all major Australian symphony orchestras, Opera Australia (La bohème, Turandot, L'elisir d'amore, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Carmen), New Zealand Opera (Sweeney Todd), Victorian Opera (Candide, Into the Woods), and the State Opera South Australia (La sonnambula, L’elisir d’amore, Les contes d’Hoffmann).
His international appearances include concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, the Malaysian Philharmonic and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Northey has collaborated with a broad range of leading artists including Lang Lang, Pinchas Zukerman, Wynton Marsalis, Maxim Vengerov, Anne-Sofie von Otter, Paul Grabowsky, Tim Minchin, k.d. Lang, Megan Washington, Barry Humphries, and Tori Amos.
Northey is highly active in the performance and recording of new Australian orchestral music, having premiered dozens of major new works by Australian composers.
An ARIA Awards winner, he was voted Limelight Magazine's Australian Artist of the Year in 2018. Northey's many recordings can be found on ABC Classics. In 2026, he conducts the Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, West Australian, Tasmanian and Christchurch Symphony Orchestras and returns to the Pittsburgh Symphony – to conduct Winton Marsalis in his All Rise programme.