The Australian-Swiss conductor Elena Schwarz, who was born in 1985 in Lugano, studied with Arturo Tamayo at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana and with Laurent Gay in Geneva, taking master classes with such figures as Neeme Järvi, Peter Eötvös, and Matthias Pintscher. In the spring of 2016 she was among the active participants in Bernard Haitink’s master class at LUCERNE FESTIVAL, in connection with which she conducted the Festival Strings Lucerne. As a scholarship holder of the Australian Conductor Development Program, she works with the Tasmanian Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra. She won the Princess Astrid Competition in Norway in 2014 and second prize at the Jorma Panula Competition in Vaasa in 2015 and has performed at the Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht, the MaerzMusik Festival in Berlin, the Festival Mixtur in Barcelona, and the Voix Nouvelles in Royaument.

August 2016