Elena Schwarz

The Australian-Swiss conductor Elena Schwarz, who was born in Lugano in 1985, initially studied cello and musicology before turning to conducting. She completed her master’s degree with Laurent Gay at the Geneva Conservatory. She then specialized in contemporary music with Arturo Tamayo at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano. She received further inspiration from Peter Eötvös and Matthias Pintscher, as well as in master classes with Neeme Järvi and Bernard Haitink. In 2014, she won the Norwegian Princess Astrid Competition and in 2015, she was awarded second prize at the Jorma Panula Conducting Competition in Vaasa. Schwarz began her career as an assistant to Mikko Franck at the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and to Asher Fisch at the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. She was Associate Conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. In the 2018-19 season, she was a fellow of the Dudamel Fellowship Program with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Since 2024, she has been resident conductor of Klangforum Wien, with whom she has also performed at the Salzburg Festival. Elena Schwarz has conducted many renowned orchestras as a guest conductor: in the 2024-25 season, she led the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the BBC Philharmonic, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the San Diego and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. As a proven expert in contemporary music, she regularly performs with the Ensemble Modern, the Ensemble intercontemporain, and the Ensemble Musikfabrik. In the opera field, Schwarz has conducted Adam Maor’s The Sleeping Thousand at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; she has led Saariaho’s Innocence at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, Janáček’s Katia Kabanová at the Opéra de Lyon, and Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Opéra de Nice. In March 2026, she will premiere Michel van der Aa’s film opera Theory of Flames in Amsterdam.

Lucerne Festival debut on 21 August 2016 with an ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Academy in a program of works by Olga Neuwirth.

June 2025