Stig Westerberg was born in Malmö, Sweden, on November 26, 1918. From 1937-1942 he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. Among his conducting teachers there was Tor Mann, and later teachers included
Paul Kletzki.
Westerberg launched his career in opera, serving as repetiteur at the Royal Swedish Opera (1943-1946), where he would return as a conductor from 1953-1957. Westerberg held two minor conducting posts in the postwar era, the first at Stockholm's Oscarsteatern (1947-1948) and the next with the
Gävle Symfoniorkester (1949-1953).
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1965, and from around that time Westerberg, who never was music director of the SRSO, regularly conducted the ensemble over the next couple of decades, producing some of that orchestra's finest performances and recordings. Not surprisingly, most of Westerberg's recordings were made with the SRSO, including the highly praised 1985
Caprice recording of
Blomdahl's outer space opera Aniara. Westerberg's last major post, held while he still worked regularly with the SRSO, was as chief conductor of the
Malmö Symphony (1978-1985). Westerberg continued to guest-conduct in the latter years of his career and died in Lidingö, Sweden, on July 1, 1999.