Highlights of the 2026/27 season include his debut at the Opéra national de Paris, where he will conduct a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Following his subscription debuts with the Staatskapelle last season, he will return to Dresden to make his debut at the Semperoper with Beethoven's Fidelio as part of Beethoven 200 celebrations. He also returns to Australia for a new production of Puccini's La bohème for his debut with Opera Australia.

Symphonic highlights include returning to Camerata Salzburg for two concert tours, as well as further engagements with regular partners the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Norwiegian Radio Orchestra, Västerås Sinfonietta, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, and Athens State Symphony. He also makes his concert debuts with Les Siècles at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in an all Beethoven programme, and with the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice.

Downie Dear is a regular guest at the Berlin State Opera, where he has conducted productions Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Věc Makropulous and The Turn of the Screw . He has also lead numerous concerts with the Staatskapelle, with a repertoire ranging from Schubert and Ravel to Kurtág, Benjamin, and Abrahamsen.

Recent symphonic highlights include an all-Beethoven programme with Balthazar Neumann Ensemble on tour to Baden-Baden and the Elbphilharmonie, returns the Bremen Philharmonic and Kammerakademie Potsdam as well as debuts with Gürzenich Orchestra and the Enescu Philharmonic. Previously he has conducted London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, the DSO Berlin, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Korean National Symphony Orchestra, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, where he will return later in 2027. Among the soloists he has worked with are Kirill Gerstein, Mikhail Pletnev, Paul Lewis, Steven Osborne, Gil Shaham, Isabelle Faust, Veronika Eberle, James Ehnes and Gautier Capuçon.

His recent opera engagements include Royal Ballet and Opera (Die Zauberflöte, Alice’s Adventures Underground), Staatsoper Hamburg (Eugene Onegin, Falstaff) Opéra de Lyon (Billy Budd ), Theater an der Wien (Miroslav Srnka's Voice Killer ), the Korean National Opera (Hänsel und Gretel ) and Polish National Opera (Die tote Stadt ). Last summer he led the Philharmonia Orchestra at Garsington Festival in Der Rosenkavalier, and he has previously appeared at Aix-en-Provence Festival (Oliver Leith's acclaimed The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor), the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Tokyo Spring Festival.

Finnegan Downie Dear is the artistic director of Shadwell Opera, a London-based opera company dedicated to contemporary British repertoire and experimental operatic forms. Their production of Oliver Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are toured the Mariinsky Theatre in 2019 and Bamberg in 2022, the latter in partnership with the Bamberg Symphony. In 2025 they gave the debut of Isabella Gellis' The Devil’s Den in collaboration with Opera North; in 2027 they will present their next commission in partnership with the Britten Pears Foundation at Snape Maltings.

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.