The 2025/26 season sees Downie Dear return to the Staatskapelle Dresden for subscription concerts following his debut with the orchestra last year. He will also return to the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Bremen Philharmonic, Kammerakademie Potsdam, and the Athens State Symphony. Debuts include with the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Enescu Philharmonic, Bucharest and the orchestra of Welsh National Opera, as well as leading a tour with the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra to Baden-Baden and the Elbphilharmonie. Operatic highlights this season include debuts at Opéra de Lyon (Billy Budd) and Garsington Opera (Der Rosenkavalier), as well as a return to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Die Zauberflöte).

Downie Dear is a regular guest at the Staatsoper Berlin, returning in 2025/26 for Don Giovanni and The Turn of the Screw. At the Staatsoper, he has previously conducted productions of Věc Makropulos and Le nozze di Figaro, as well as leading numerous concerts with the Staatskapelle Berlin, in repertoire ranging from Schubert and Ravel to Kurtág, Benjamin, and Abrahamsen.

In recent seasons, Downie Dear has led concerts with the London Philharmonic, the Hallé, Gothenburg Symphony, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Filarmonica del Teatro Communale di Bologna, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Bochum Symphony, Bamberg Symphony, DSO Berlin, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He collaborates with soloists including Kirill Gerstein, Mikhail Pletnev, Paul Lewis, Steven Osborne, Gil Shaham, Isabelle Faust, Veronika Eberle, James Ehnes, and Gautier Capuçon.

His recent operatic appearances include the Staatsoper Hamburg (Eugene Onegin and Falstaff), Theater an der Wien (Voice Killer by Miroslav Srnka), the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Alice’s Adventures Under Ground by Gerald Barry), Korean National Opera (Hänsel und Gretel), Polish National Opera (Die tote Stadt), and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, in Oliver Leith’s acclaimed reimagining of Billy Budd. He has also performed at the Salzburg Osterfestspiele and the Tokyo Spring Festival.

Downie Dear is Artistic Director of Shadwell Opera — a London-based company committed to contemporary British repertoire and experimental operatic forms. Their production of Oliver Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are toured to the Mariinsky Theatre and to Bamberg, in partnership with the Bamberger Symphoniker. Last summer, the company gave the semi-staged world premiere of The Devil’s Den by Isabella Gellis at the Nevill Holt Festival, and Downie Dear will bring the piece to life in a new production by Jack Furness in November 2025.

Born in London, Downie Dear graduated with distinction in musicology from the University of Cambridge and in piano from the Royal Academy of Music. He came to international attention in 2020 when he was awarded First Prize at the International Mahler Competition of the Bamberger Symphoniker.