Music Director & Conductor

Stephen Alltop is celebrating his thirteenth season as Music Director and Conductor of the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, he received the Conductor of the Year Award from the Illinois Council of Orchestras for his work with CUSO. He also serves as Music Director of the Apollo Chorus of Chicago and the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Alltop has been a member of Northwestern University’s conducting and keyboard faculties since 1994. His recent projects at Northwestern have included conducting the world premiere recording of Stacy Garrop’s oratorio Terra Nostra for Cedille Records, and leading Handel’s Alcina and Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea.

Stephen has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as both a harpsichord and organ soloist, and performs frequently with Chicago’s Music of The Baroque. He has performed with Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society and the Chicago Bach Project, Chicago Sinfonietta, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Joffrey Ballet, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Omaha Symphony, and the Peninsula Music Festival and Ravinia Festival. Dr. Alltop served as coordinator and performer for WFMT’s Chicago Bach Organ Project in the fall of 2014, a live performance series of all of Bach’s organ works, and the WFMT Bach Keyboard Festival in the fall of 2015. His recordings are on the Albany, American Gramaphone, Cedille, and Clarion labels.

Dr. Alltop has performed with many leading musicians and actors of our time, including Hilary Hahn, Orli Shaham, Tony Randall, Martin Sheen, and Brian Dennehy. He has prepared ensembles for the Ravinia Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Star Wars in Concert, and Josh Groban on Tour.

Dr. Alltop has guest conducted numerous orchestras and choruses across the United States, Europe, and South Korea. In June 2022, he stepped in on three-hours notice to lead the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in a program of Beethoven, Shubert, and Tchaikovsky, broadcast live on WFMT Radio. He returned to the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in August 2023. He has worked closely with leading composers of the day, including residency projects with John Corigliano, Eleanor Daley, Stacy Garrop, Stephen Paulus, and Eric Whitacre, and has conducted world premieres of works by John Luther Adams, Joseph Schwantner, Frank Ferko, Fabrizio Festa, Stacy Garrop, Stephen Paulus, and many others. In 2007, he made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting the music of Eric Whitacre.

He has conducted opera and orchestral concerts with a number of Italian orchestras, including I Soloisti di Perugia, Fondazione Arturo Toscanini (Bologna), Teatro Reggio Orchestra (Parma), Festival Mozart (Roverto), Orchestra Sinfonica (Bari), Teatro Piccinni (Bari), and the Festival Duni (Matera). In June 2025, he led an all-American concert with Choeur Arsis in Fribourg, Switzerland

Dr. Alltop lectures frequently for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Northwestern University Alumnae Continuing Education Series, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and other organizations. Since 2014, he has given presentations on leadership for various programs in the Kellogg School of Management.

Stephen is an avid squash player and baseball fan. His latest fitness goal is to do fifty 5k races (17 still to go).