Music Director of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 2003 to 2008, Stefan Lano came to conducting both through his work as composer and after an extensive tenure on the music staff of the Vienna State Opera. The 1976 premiere of his Sinfonie No 1 at the Newport Music Festival afforded him his initial experience in the symphonic genre, both as composer and conductor. After completing degrees in Composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music (as a student of Richard Hoffmann) and Biology at Oberlin College, he was awarded a full scholarship for study at Harvard University from which he obtained a PhD in Composition. Among his awards as a composer are a BMI Award in Composition for his Sinfonie No 1, the National Society of Arts and Letters First Prize for his Concerto for Piano and Wind Orchestra and an American Music Center (Rockefeller Foundation) Composition Grant.

In 1977 Stefan Lano was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for composition studies with Isang Yun in Berlin, under whose tutelage he composed his Sinfonie Nr. 2 (Grodek). Following his time of study in Berlin, he was engaged as repetiteur at the Graz Opera. In 1982 Lorin Maazel appointed him to the music staff of the Vienna State Opera where he remained for many years, during which time he also worked and performed at the Salzburg Festival, Teatro alla Scala Milano and Teatro Liceu Barcelona. In 1988 he was appointed Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Since his return to Europe in 1991, he has won critical and public acclaim with a diverse repertoire at major musical centers: Turandot at the Hamburg State Opera and at the National Theater of Lithuania; operas by Wolfgang Rihm: Jakob Lenz in Bonn and Die Eroberung von Mexiko in Nürnberg; the world premiere of Mayako Kubo's Rashomon in Graz, which was released by Austrian Radio on CD; Le Nozze di Figaro and La Boheme, both in Basel and Munich; and highly acclaimed productions of The Rake's Progress, Elektra and Jenufa in Basel. In concert he has worked with the Pittsbugh Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Basler Symphoniker, Nürnberger Philharmoniker and Nürnberger Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Wiesbaden, Orquestra de la ciudad de Rio de Janeiro, Sinfonica Nacional de Chile, Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago de Chile, Slovak Sinfonietta, the National Philharmonic of Lithuania, State Orchestra of Greece and is a regular guest with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the Teatro Colón and the Teatro Argentino.

For the first South American performances of the complete version of Alban Berg's Lulu Stefan Lano was invited to inaugurate the 1993 season of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. The press praised this production as one of the most important and significant in the history of the Teatro Colón. Since then, Lano has been a regular guest in Buenos Aires, conducting Wozzeck and Bluebeard's Castle in 1995, L'amour des trois oranges in 1998; Korngold's Die Tote Stadt and Strauss' Salome in 1999. At the end of the 1999 season, he was awarded the distinction of Best Foreign Conductor from the Association of Argentine Music Critics.

Stefan Lano made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with The Rake's Progress in 1997 where he also prepared the Met production of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. This was followed by engagements with the San Francisco Opera for Berg's Lulu, St Louis Opera for Le nozze di Figaro, Richard Strauss' Salome at the Cincinnati Opera and a return to San Francisco for Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe in 2000. In the 2001 season he conducted new productions of Turandot at the Teatro Argentino and The Rake's Progress at the Teatro Colón.

Another notable debut was made in 2002, when Stefan Lano conducted concert performances of Alban Berg's Wozzeck with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra. Critically acclaimed by public and press, Lano and the orchestra were distinguished at season's end with an OPUS Award as 'Best Concert of the Season' by the Conseil quebecoise de la musique. During this season, he also returned to the Cincinnati Opera for a new production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking; Berlioz' La Damnation de Faust at the Teatro Colón and diverse concert appearances in Santiago de Chile, Athens, Greece and Vilnius, Lithuania. Recent engagements have included concerts in Spain with the orchestra of the Escuela Superior de la Música Reina Sophia; a return to Montréal conducting Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle and the complete ballet music of Roussel's Bacchus et Ariane; a commemorative production of Alberto Ginastera's opera, Bomarzo at the Teatro Colón; a new production of Puccini's Turandot at the National Opera Theater of Lithuania and concerts with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires, Singapore Symphony and Lithuanian National Philharmonic with pianist, Muza Rubackyte.

The world premier of his EIKASIA: Sinfonie Nr. 3 took place in December, 2004 with the composer conducting the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Orchestra. He is currently orchestrating his Sieben Lieder on texts of Rainer Maria Rilke and has been commissioned to compose a new piano concerto for Muza Rubackyte and the Lithuanian National Philharmonic.

The 2005 season will be spent largely in the United States of America, where Stefan Lano will conduct world premiers of two new operas: Mark Adamo's Lysistrata at the Houston Grand Opera and Richard Danielpour's Margaret Garner in co-productions with the Michigan Opera Theater, Cincinnati Opera and The Opera Company of Philadelphia. In October/November 2005 Stefan Lano will conduct George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at the Atlanta Opera.

Recent engagements include concerts with the Lithuanian National Philharmonic, the Chamber Orchestra of Lithuania and productions at the National Opera Theatre of Lithuania as well as Richard Strauss' Salome at Michigan Opera Theatre in 2006 and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at the Opera Company of Philadelphia in 2007. In 2009 he conducted a series of performances of Tosca at Staatsoper Hamburg.

The Sächsische Staatsoper Semperoper in Dresden engaged him to conduct Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking in 2007 after which he was immediately re-invited to conduct the new Nicholas Lehnhoff production of Hans Werner Henze's L'Upupa in 2009. His work with the Semperoper ensemble and Staatskapelle Dresden was universally praised in the German and international press as a major artistic triumph for the theater, orchestra, and the notion that contemporary music can be presented with such lucidity, color and commitment. He has since conducted the Dresden production of Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov (version: 1869) and will return to the Semper Oper in the 2011-12 season.

In the coming year, in addition to many concert appearances, he returns to Bratislava for Boris Godunov, and to the Teatro Argentino for Eugen Onegin.

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