Widely admired for her incisive knowledge of scores, Elena Schwarz brings a textural clarity and luminosity of sound to music from all eras, inspiring confidence and drawing the best from musicians whether conducting symphony orchestras, contemporary ensembles or opera productions.
Schwarz’s guest engagements in 2024–25 include her debut with Vienna Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Barcelona Symphony and Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, as well as return engagements to BBC Philharmonic, WDR Sinfonieorchester, San Diego Symphony, Adelaide Symphony, Bremen Philharmoniker and Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège.
Appointed Resident Conductor of Klangforum Wien from 2024, she is an enthusiastic advocate of new music, also working with specialist contemporary ensembles such as MusikFabrik, Ensemble Intercontemporain and Ensemble Modern, championing works by Clara Iannotta, Lisa Streich, Rebecca Saunders, Liza Lim, Nina Senk, Beat Furrer and Sarah Nemtsov, among others.
Since winning the Trondheim Competition in 2014 and becoming a Dudamel Fellow in 2018–19, Schwarz has become highly in demand as a guest conductor with orchestras in Europe, the US and Australia. In repertoire encompassing the symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler and works by Shostakovich and Stravinsky, she has conducted orchestras including the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, The Hallé, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and Gulbenkian Orchestra. She recently made her debut with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in the prestigious Zaterdag Matinee series at the Concertgebouw.
Following an impressive operatic debut at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence conducting Adam Maor’s The Sleeping Thousand in 2019, Schwarz’s performances of Saariaho’s Innocence at Dutch National Opera last season drew five-star reviews and an immediate re-invitation. She has also conducted Katya Kabanova at Opéra de Lyon, Hansel & Gretel at Norwegian Opera, Rusalka at Opéra de Nice and Dora at Staatsoper Stuttgart.
Of Swiss and Australian parentage, she studied at the 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.
