Ryan Bancroft
About this Artist
Raised in Los Angeles, conductor Ryan Bancroft has rapidly built an international career that takes him all over the globe to work with many of the world’s leading orchestras. Since September 2021, Bancroft has been Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In September 2023, he became Chief Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. He also holds the position of Artist in Association with the Tapiola Sinfonietta in Finland.
After opening his tenure as Chief Conductor in Stockholm with the orchestra’s first performance of Sandström’s The High Mass, Bancroft continued his first two seasons with performances of Mahler and Bruckner symphonies alongside world premieres by Chrichan Larson and Zacharias Wolfe, while working with renowned soloists including Emanuel Ax, Leif Ove Andsnes, Maxim Vengerov, and Víkingur Ólafsson. In 2025/26, Bancroft continues to partner important Swedish composers such as Stenhammar, Pettersson, and Tebogo Monnakgotla, with established works in the classical canon by Prokofiev, Berlioz, and Shostakovich.
In August 2023, Bancroft returned to LA to make his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. His appearances this weekend with the orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall follows his critically acclaimed debut at the Hall in April 2025. Elsewhere in the US, he makes his debuts with the St. Louis, Houston, and New World symphony orchestras, following recent successful debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He has close relationships in Canada with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
Also this season, Bancroft debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican with Clara-Jumi Kang and with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo with Thomas Hampson. He continues his relationships with orchestras such as the Philharmonia, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, and Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse. In recent seasons, he has led the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin at the Berlin Philharmonie, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León.
Since his success at the prestigious Malko Competition for Young Conductors in 2018, where he won both First Prize and the Audience Prize, Bancroft has conducted a number of other leading European orchestras including the BBC Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Turin.