David Björkman – Conductor
David Björkman is one of the Nordic musicians who has taken the step from the concertmaster’s chair to the conductor’s desk. He was a prizewinner at the 2008 Prokofiev International Conducting Competition in St. Petersburg and won the Swedish Conductor’s Prize already during his studies.
David has a continuous collaboration with all major orchestras in Sweden and has conducted many productions at the Royal Swedish Opera, the Gothenburg Opera, the Malmö Opera, the Folkoperan and the NorrlandsOperan. He has conducted the Royal Swedish Philharmonic at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm Concert Hall and enjoys being a frequent guest there. He has conducted five world premieres at the Vadstena Academy Opera House and has guest conducted throughout the Nordic region as well as in Russia and Slovenia.
David has premiered over 50 orchestral works and introduced new works in both opera and ballet, including works by Sven-David Sandström, Sebastian Fagerlund, Mats Larsson Gothe and Moto Osada – including Osada’s international success Four Nights of Dream. His long-standing collaboration with the Swedish-American composer Daniel Nelson has led to the premieres of the operas Pride and Prejudice and Sova vaken, the ballet The Little Prince, and the orchestral works Urban-o-rama and Music for Beasts.
He has recorded for record labels such as Naxos, Daphne, Orchid and Swedish Society, with the orchestras Odense Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Opera Orchestra and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
In the coming seasons he is reinvited to the Royal Swedish Opera, Wermland Opera and Malmö Opera, among others, with premieres of Britta Byström, Mats Larsson Gothe and Mikael Karlsson.
David was born in 1973 and studied violin at the University of Gothenburg. As a violinist in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and later as concertmaster at NorrlandsOperan, he learned much from watching many prominent conductors at work.
In 1999 he decided to turn to study conducting, which he did at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm under Jorma Panula. During his studies he received generous support and mentorship from Esa-Pekka Salonen and from Sixten Ehrling in New York.
(June 2025)