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Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

conductor

About this Artist

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla was named Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in February 2016 following in the footsteps of Sir Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, and Andris Nelsons. With the start of the 2022/23 season, she assumes the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the CBSO for one season. Winner of the 2012 Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award, she subsequently made her debut with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in a symphonic concert at the Salzburger Festspiele.  

   Recent highlights include a highly acclaimed performance of Britten’s War Requiem at the Salzburger Festspiele; her celebrated return to opera with a new production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, staged by Barrie Kosky, at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in January 2022; numerous European tours with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; and performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie, the Swedish Radio Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  

   Gražinytė-Tyla has electrified audiences as a guest conductor all over the world. In Europe, she has collaborated with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, MDR Leipzig, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre National de Lyon, as well as the Chamber Orchestra of Vienna, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, and the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin. At the Kremerata Baltica, she has enjoyed a dynamic collaboration with Gidon Kremer on numerous European tours. She has led operas in Munich, Heidelberg, Salzburg, Komische Oper Berlin, and Bern, where she served as Kapellmeister. In North America, she has worked with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Diego and led the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in her Carnegie Hall debut in May of 2018. With the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gražinytė -Tyla was a Dudamel Fellow in the 2012/13 season, Assistant Conductor (in 2014-16), and Associate Conductor (in 2016-17). She was the Music Director of the Salzburg Landestheater from 2015 until 2017.  

   An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon Artist since 2018, her first album on the yellow label was released in the spring of 2019. It delighted critics and listeners worldwide and was hailed as an essential contribution to the rediscovery of Mieczysław Weinberg’s œuvre, winning the Opus Klassik and Grammophon awards in 2020. The recording was the result of a cooperation of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, and Gidon Kremer. A second recording was released by Deutsche Grammophon in November 2019. This features works by her compatriot Raminta Šerkšnytė and was followed by her most recent CD “The British Project,” including works by Elgar, Britten, Walton, and Vaughan Williams, released in July 2021.  

   Gražinytė-Tyla was discovered by the German Conducting Forum (Deutsches Dirigentenforum) in April 2009. A native of Vilnius, Lithuania, she was born into a musical family. Before pursuing her studies at the Music Conservatory in Zurich, she studied at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Music Conservatory in Leipzig and at the Music Conservatory in Bologna, Italy. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in choral and orchestral conducting from the University of Music and Fine Arts in Graz, Austria. She has participated in numerous masterclasses and conducting workshops and has worked with many established conductors and professors, such as Christian Ehwald, George Alexander Albrecht, Johannes Schlaefli, Herbert Blomstedt, and Colin Metters.