Stephen Alltop

Stephen Alltop is Music Director of the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Apollo Chorus of Chicago. In 2023, he was named the Illinois Council of Orchestra’s Conductor of the Year for 2022. Under his direction, the Apollo Chorus has expanded its collaborations to include appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Opera Theater, London Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia Festival, Peninsula Music Festival, and more. Writing about the Chorus’s performance of Handel’s complete Messiah in December of 2022, Chicago Classical Review said “Alltop conducted from memory and favored brisk tempi that kept Handel’s familiar canvas moving along. He was consistently attuned to the nuances of Handel’s writing, and brought out fresh details even in this well-worn work, which never sounded perfunctory in his hands.” Stephen Alltop performs frequently with Music of the Baroque and directs the “Conducting Leadership” program.

A specialist in oratorio and historical performance practice, Stephen Alltop is a member of the conducting and keyboard faculties at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University where he conducts the Alice Millar Chapel Choir and the Baroque Music Ensemble. An ambassador for music, he speaks to groups of all ages and backgrounds every year. He has given over 115 90-minute lectures on a variety of musical topics for the Northwestern University Alumnae Association, and since 2014 has given presentations on conducting and leadership to MBA students and executives from around the world on behalf of the Kellogg School of Management. An advocate for diversity in programming, he has sought to bring attention to under-represented composers in both the orchestral and choral realm.

Stephen Alltop has guest-conducted numerous orchestras and choruses across the United States and in Europe. In 2022, he stepped in to conduct the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra on four-hours notice in a concert broadcast live on WFMT. He returned to the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in August of 2023.

An ardent champion of contemporary music, Altop has conducted world premieres by Stacy Garrop, Stephen Paulus, Joseph Schwantner, John Luther Adams, Jan Bach, Françoise Choveaux, Frank Ferko, Fabrizio Festa, Giancarlo Scarvaglieri, Alan Terricciano, and many others. He has coordinated residencies for composers John Corigliano, Eleanor Daley, Stephen Paulus, Jeff Beal, Janika Vandervelde and Eric Whitacre, and made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2007 conducting Whitacre’s music. He has worked closely with Stacy Garrop, conducting and performing a wide variety of her works.

Stephen Alltop has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a harpsichord and organ soloist, and has performed with the Joffrey Ballet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, and across Europe.