Elena Schwarz
Conductor
Elena Schwarz brings precision, luminosity and clarity to her performances, underpinned by incisive command of the score and a finely tuned ear for texture, colour and balance, whether conducting symphonic repertoire, contemporary music or opera. A committed advocate of new music and Resident Conductor of Klangforum Wien, she also champions overlooked composers.
Schwarz’s debuts in 2026–27 include at the BBC Proms with BBC National Orchestral of Wales, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg with WDR Sinfonieorchester and Lincoln Center with Festival Orchestra. She returns to Helsinki Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia and the Hallé, following her successful debut last season, and conducts at Casa da Música with both Orquestra Sinfónica and Remix Ensemble.
Resident Conductor of Klangforum Wien since 2024, Schwarz is a dedicated advocate of new music, also working with specialist contemporary ensembles such as MusikFabrik, Ensemble intercontemporain, Basel Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern. She has championed works by Clara Iannotta, Lisa Streich, Rebecca Saunders, Liza Lim, Georges Asperghis, Nina Šenk, Beat Furrer and Sarah Nemtsov, among others. In June 2026, she won the OPUS KLASSIK World Premiere Recording of the Year award for Elsa Barraine’s Symphony nos.1 and 2 with WDR Sinfonieorchester.
Schwarz is in demand as a guest conductor across Europe, the US and Australia. She has conducted Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich and Stravinsky with orchestras including Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Vienna Symphony, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, SWR Symphonieorchester, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lucerne Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
A natural collaborator, she has worked with artists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Marc-André Hamelin, Víkingur Ólafsson, Renaud Capuçon, Carolin Widmann, Leila Josefowicz, Alina Ibragimova, Tabea Zimmermann and Sheku Kanneh-Mason.
Following her opera debut in 2019 at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, conducting Adam Maor’s The Sleeping Thousand, Schwarz conducted Saariaho’s Innocence at Dutch National Opera, winning five-star reviews and an immediate re-invitation to conduct the world premiere of Michel van der Aa’s Theory of Flames. This season, she conducts revivals of Innocence at Royal Danish Opera and Theory of Flames at Bregenzer Festspiele in addition to twelve performances of La Traviata with Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. She has conducted Káťa Kabanová at Opéra de Lyon, Hansel and Gretel at Norwegian Opera, Rusalka at Opéra de Nice and Dora at Staatsoper Stuttgart.
Schwarz won the Trondheim Competition in 2014 and was a Dudamel Fellow with Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2018–19. Of Swiss and Australian parentage, she studied at Geneva Conservatoire and Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, followed by further studies with Peter Eötvös and Matthias Pintscher, and masterclasses with Bernard Haitink and Neeme Järvi.