Lawrence Renes rose to fame in 1995, when he replaced Riccardo Chailly to conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, in a programme of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. Broadcast on Dutch TV this highly successful performance made the basis for a documentary on Renes entitled A Dream Début.

During the period 2001-2006 Lawrence Renes held the post of Director of Opera at Bremen Theatre and General Music Director of the Bremer Philharmoniker, where he concluded his tenure with performances of Strauss’s Metamorphosen and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. From 1998 to 2003 Mr Renes was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Gelders Orkest, Arnhem, with whom he built his reputation for authoritative performances of works by Mahler, Bruckner and Wagner. He also has established a regular relationship with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and works with them each season. A recent highlight of this collaboration was the Nobel Peace Prize Gala Concert with Renée Fleming in December 2006.

In recent seasons, Lawrence Renes has conducted many of Europe’s most prestigious orchestras: including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, BBC and Gothenburg Symphonies, Teatro Carlo Felice - Genoa, MDR Leipzig and WDR Köln, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Danish National Symphony Orchestras. Within the US he has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Minnesota, Seattle, Houston, Detroit, Indianapolis and St. Louis Symphonies and at the 2007 Aspen Music Festival. Further afield he has also worked with the New Zealand, Melbourne, and West Australian Symphony Orchestras.

Engagements for this and forthcoming seasons include returns to the Oslo Philharmonic, Het Residentie Orkest, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and the Malmo Symphony. He will also be conducting the National Orchestra of Spain, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Bergen Philharmonic to name a few. Lawrence Renes has gained an excellent operatic reputation with his ability to offer a broad range of repertoire, including a number of contemporary operas. He gave the US première of Tan Dun's Tea with Sante Fe Opera to great critical acclaim. In 2007 he returned to Netherlands Opera for the European Première of John Adams's Dr Atomic and will lead the work’s UK première at the English National Opera in 2009. He makes his Seattle Opera début with Elektra in 2008 and 2009 sees his début with Theatre Royal de la Monnaie (The Rake’s Progress). Mr Renes has also conducted at the Hamburg State Opera, and as Opera Director in Bremen his repertoire included Eugene Onegin, Le Nozze di Figaro, Tosca, Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, Aïda, Lohengrin, Il Trovatore, Tannhäuser, The Cunning Little Vixen, Turandot, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Kat’a Kabanova.

Having studied violin at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, Lawrence Renes went on to study conducting at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, where he graduated with honours in 1993. During 1994 to 1996 Mr Renes was the assistant to Edo de Waart at the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic where he was involved in the Netherlands Opera production of Werther, the Mahler celebration at the Concertgebouw, Schoenberg's Gürrelieder at the Holland Festival and a recording of the Mahler cycle.