MIRGA GRAZINYTE-TYLA was discovered by the German Conducting Forum – Deutscher Dirigentenforum in April 2009 and has since benefitted from their conducting program and support. Starting with the 2011/2012 season, she became 2nd Kapellmeister of the Theater Heidelberg for two consecutive seasons, which enabled her to conduct many opera productions and symphonic concerts. In April 2012, Grazinyte-Tyla won the prestigious “Nestle and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award” selected from 91 applicants by a jury chaired by Maestro Ingo Metzmacher, giving her the opportunity to conduct the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival in August 2012.

Praised as a dynamic, profound and extremely talented young conductor, Grazinyte-Tyla was one of the revelations of the 2009 Kurt Masur Conducting Seminar in Bonn, Germany on “the Art of Conducting Beethoven.” As a result she was invited back to Bonn in December 2009 by the Beethoven Orchester and its music director Stefan Blunier to participate in the “Beethoven Night.” In addition, Maestro Kurt Masur invited her to share the podium with him and two other conductors for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in December 2010. Grazinyte-Tyla conducted the second movement of the symphony.

Highlights of Grazinyte-Tyla’s career include several productions at the Theater Heidelberg such as Aida and Carmen, a contemporary opera, Las Cartas de Frida by the renowned Mexican composer Marcela Rodriguez; La Traviata in Osnabrück; concerts with the MDR Orchestra Leipzig with Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” with the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, with the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra as well as a collaboration with the Camerata Salzburg and the Bergische Symphoniker, Remscheid, Germany.

A native of Vilnius, Lithuania, Grazinyte-Tyla was born into a musical family. Before pursuing her studies at the Music Conservatory Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Leipzig in 2008, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in choral and orchestral conducting from the University of Music and Fine Arts, Graz, Austria. From 2007 until 2008 she furthered her studies at the Music Conservatory in Bologna, Italy. She has participated in numerous master classes and conducting workshops and worked with many established conductors and professors such as Christian Ehwald, George Alexander Albrecht, Johannes Schlaefli, Collin Metters and Kurt Masur.

In 2007 she was the recipient of the First Prize of the International Competition for Young Choral Conductors in Budapest, Hungary and in 2008 she won the third prize at the International Conducting Competition in Stavanger, Norway.