Stephen Ellery has just conducted the London Symphony Orchestra LSO during a masterclass under Maestro Valeri Gergiev. The program featured Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony 6 and Debussy's L'apres midi d'une faune.

Stephen Ellery has worked with orchestras, opera companies and choirs in Japan (Tokyo City Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Gunma Symphony, Tokatsu Opera, Kansai 21 Century), Latin America (Filarmonica de la ciudad de Mexico, Sinfonica Nacional de Peru, Sinfonica de Arequipa, Sinfpnica de Trujillo) and Europe (Lublin Philharmonic, Kielce Philharmonic, Sofia Festival, Silesian Philharmonic, Olsztyn Philharmonic, Radom Chamber Orchestra, Plock Symphony Orchestra) as well as further afield (Krasnoyarsk Academic Symphony, Hanoi Philharmonic, Calcutta Music Foundation Orchestra) and in the UK with the Locrian Ensemble of London.

He was 2nd conductor of the Pacific Ocean Symphony in Vladivostok 1995-6 and 2nd conductor at the Yakutsk State Opera 1996-7. During the Vladivostok period he conducted symphonies by Mahler, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky’s operas Yolanta and Evgeni Onegin,  and Verdi’s La Traviata. In Yakutsk he conducted Traviata and Rigoletto as well as ballets Giselle and Don Qichotte. He also gave many concerts with an orchestra he formed - the  “Yakutsk Youth Orchestra”.

He regularly works with youth orchestras in Waltham Forest, London, and in Gunma, Japan. In March earlier this year he joined these orchestras together and added musicians from Thailand  and Nepal for a concert in Chingford. In August he conducts the Gunma Junior Orchestra in China.

As a sax player he performed on the Berlin Wall in 1989 as it was being taken down and last month went back with Kurt Barling of the BBC to play again to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It was difficult to find the same spot! See the clip-

Stephen Ellery was a pupil of Maestro Ilya Musin in St Petersburg (Russia 1991-95) and Maestro Jerzy Katlewicz in Krakow (Poland 1988-91). He has also had lessons from Kobayashi Kenichiro, Tadaaki Otaka, Hirokami Junichi, Gianluigi Gelmetti and Kurt Masur.

Stephen Ellery was awarded the Special Prize for his conducting of Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle in the 2007 Bartok International Opera Conducting Competition held in Romania. In 1999 he was a 3rd prizewinner as well as the Best Artist and recipient of the Polish Radio Prize at the Fitelberg International Conducting Competition in Poland in 1999.