The Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla was appointed Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) in 2016, following conductors such as Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo and Andris Nelsons. Under her direction the CBSO has celebrated successful guest appearances and tours worldwide. She received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor Award in 2019 for her outstanding work with the CBSO. In 2022 she stepped down from her position as music director, but maintains a connection with the orchestra as Associate Artist.
Recent highlights have included Britten’s War Requiem at the Salzburg Festival, the new production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and concerts with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
In the 2023/24 season Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla has made guest appearances with the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and conducted Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, with which ensemble she has also appeared in Lucerne, Cologne and Berlin. She has also made debuts with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, and in a new production of Mieczysław Weinberg’s Die Passagierin at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
She grew up in a musical family in Vilnius and studied choral and orchestral conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. She went on to further studies at the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna, at the University of Music and Theatre ‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy‘ in Leipzig and at the Zurich University of the Arts. From 2011 to 2014 she was Kapellmeister of the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg and at Bühnen Bern, before moving to the Salzburg Landestheater, where she was music director from 2015 to 2017.
In 2019 she released her debut CD of Weinberg’s Second and 21st Symphonies with Deutsche Grammophon. The recording was made with the CBSO, the Kremerata Baltica and the violinist Gidon Kremer. It was celebrated as a significant contribution to the revival of interest in Weinberg’s oeuvre, and in 2020 was awarded both the Opus Klassik and the Gramophone Classical Music Award. Other recordings for Deutsche Grammophon have included works by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė and The British Project featuring works by Britten, Elgar, Walton and Vaughan Williams. Her latest release is again dedicated to the works of Weinberg.
