From 1997-99 he was director of the l'Acad_mie Europ_enne de Musique (equivalent to student program at Tanglewood) at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. (While there, he conducted the acclaimed production of Benjamin Britten's Curlew River by Japanese actor/director Yoshi Oida, and he has remained with the production over the years as it has toured, including a recent run at the Japan Society in New York.)

Stern's busy guest-conducting career has included engagements with, among others, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the G‹rzenich-Orchester of Cologne, the Orchestra sinfonica della RAI, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the New Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, the Op_ra national de Lyon and English National Opera.

A key facet of Stern's career is his work with period-instrument ensembles. He is principal guest conductor for 19th-century repertoire of Concerto K‹ln, and he is artistic director of Opera Fuoco, which he co-founded in 2002 to perform and record opera and oratorio of the Baroque and early Classical periods. Among the group's successes are Handel's Hercules, Semele and Jephtha and Telemann's Ino and Der Tag des Gerichts.

At the end of August, David Stern will conduct Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Gauteng Choir of South Africa in Amsterdam, at the Bremen Festival (Germany) and the Gstaad Festival (Switzerland).

David Stern's brother, Michael Stern, is music director of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra.