Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (born 29 August 1986) is a Lithuanian conductor. She is the music director of the Salzburger Landestheater and Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Gražinytė-Tyla was born in Vilnius. Her father, Romualdas Gražinis, is a choir conductor, and her mother Sigutė Gražinienė is a pianist and singer. Her grandmother Beata Vasiliauskaitė-Šmidtienė was a violinist. Her great-uncle was an organist, and her great-aunt was a composer. The oldest of three siblings, her sister Onutė Gražinytė is a pianist, and she has a younger brother, Adomas Gražinis.

As a child, Gražinytė-Tyla received her initial education in French and painting, and studied at the National M.K. Čiurlionis school of art in Vilnius. At age 11, she decided that she wanted to study music, and the one remaining musical programme option was choral conducting. She subsequently received musical training and education without ever playing a musical instrument. She first conducted a choir at age 13. She subsequently continued music studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, Austria, where her instructors included Johannes Prinz, and completed her degree in 2007. After that she studied conducting at the Music Conservatory Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Leipzig) with Ulrich Windfuhr and the Music Conservatory in Zurich (where her mentors included Johannes Schlaefli).

Gražinytė-Tyla became Second Kapellmeister (2. Kapellmeisterin) at the Theater Heidelberg in the 2011-2012 season. She maintains a residence in Heidelberg. In 2012, she won the Nestlé and Salzburg Young Conductors Competition. With the 2013-2014 season, she became First Kapellmeister (1. Kapellmeisterin) at the Bern Opera. Gražinytė-Tyla became music director of the Salzburger Landestheater with the 2015-2016 season, with an initial contract of 2 seasons. She has stated publicly her intention to conclude her music directorship of the Salzburger Landestheater after the 2016-2017 season.

In the USA, Gražinytė-Tyla was a Gustavo Dudamel Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 2012–2013 season. In July 2014, she was named the orchestra's assistant conductor, on a 2-year contract. In August 2015, the orchestra named her its new associate conductor, effective with the end of the 2015-2016 season, contracted through 2017.

...
Wikipedia