Markus Stenz has been Principal Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since the 2015/16 season. Since January 2017, he has also been Conductor in Residence with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

The 2017/2018 season once more takes Markus Stenz to numerous concerts in the USA, including with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. He will also make his début in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in the same year it opened, giving the German première of Detlev Glanert's “Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch” with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. Other highlights are engagements with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, and the revival of Franz Schreker's opera “Die Gezeichneten” (“The Stigmatized”) at the Bayerische Staatsoper.

In the last season (2016/17), Markus Stenz conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bern Symphony Orchestra and – for the first time since leaving his position as Gürzenich-Kapellmeister – the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln. He also presented numerous exciting concert programmes with his Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, performing works by Mussorgsky, Liszt, Szymanowski, Rachmaninov, Mozart and Wagner, with Jörg Widman's “Babylon” to end the season.

As a concert conductor, Markus Stenz has been at the helm of many prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Vienna Symphony, the Hallé Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Staatskapelle and Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Bamberg Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and the radio orchestras of German broadcasters BR, HR, WDR and NDR. In the USA, he has worked with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas.

As an operatic conductor, Markus Stenz has given many world and national premières, including Hans Werner Henze's “The Ocean Betrayed” (“Das Verratene Meer”) in Berlin, “Venus and Adonis” at the Bayerische Staatsoper and “L'Upupa and the Triumph of Filial Love” (“L’ Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe”) at the 2003 Salzburg Festival. He has performed in major international opera houses, among them the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the English National Opera, the Lyric Opera Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, in Los Angeles, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, the Hamburg State Opera and the Oper Frankfurt, as well as at international festivals such as the Glyndebourne Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival and the festivals in Bregenz and Salzburg.

Markus Stenz made himself a name early on with unusual projects and numerous premières. In 1989, he took over the musical direction of the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte in Montepulciano (until 1995) and was Principal Conductor of the London Sinfonietta, the most renowned British contemporary music ensemble, from 1994 to 1998. From 1998 to 2004, he was Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

For 11 years (since the 2003/04 season), Markus Stenz was the Kapellmeister of the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln – an extremely productive period in which he received a prize for “The Best Concert Programme of the 2003/04 Season”. In addition to high-profile opera productions (including Wagner's “Ring des Nibelungen”, “Lohengrin”, “Tannhäuser”, “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, Janáčeks

“Jenůfa” und “Kátja Kabanová” and Schreker's “Die Gezeichneten”), Stenz initiated a number of youth and educational projects such as “Experiment Klassik”, “3. Akt” and the concert live-recording project “GO live”.

His large discography includes many prize-winning productions and e.g. the recording of Mahler’s 5th Symphony (Oehms Classics) is to be found in the German Record Critics' quarterly “Best” list. Recently, the recording of Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder with the Gürzenich-Orchester received the Gramophone Classical Music Award.

Markus Stenz has been honoured with the Fellowship of the Royal Northern College of Music. In a laudatory speech, Clark Rundell, the head of the conducting faculty at the internationally renowned music conservatory in Manchester, described him as one of the greatest conductors of his generation. In receiving this honour, Stenz joins the ranks of musicians such as Zubin Mehta, Mstislav Rostropovich and Brigitte Fassbaender.