Big leap
Anna Handler becomes assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Former Weimar conducting student Anna Handler was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) a few days ago. The German-Colombian conductor will begin her two-year term from September 2024 alongside second assistant conductor Samy Rachid. She was appointed by the BSO's Music Director Andris Nelsons, who is also Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.
Anna Handler was a bachelor student in the conducting class of Prof Ekhart Wycik and Prof Nicolás Pasquet at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar from 2018 to 2021.
"Anna Handler is following in the footsteps of conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas, who also began their careers as Assistant Conductors of the BSO," says her former conducting professor at the Weimar University of Music, Prof Ekhart Wycik. Following her studies in Weimar, Anna Handler moved to the Juilliard School in New York, where she completed her conducting training in May 2023.
"It is a great honour to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra as Assistant Conductor," says Anna Handler. "The orchestra's rich history and unique sound fascinate me, and I can't wait to dive deep into the orchestra's musical approach. I am very much looking forward to working with Music Director Andris Nelsons and the musicians."
The young conductor will make her scheduled debut with the BSO at the 2025 Tanglewood Festival, followed by concerts at Boston Symphony Hall during the BSO's 2025/26 season.
"I am delighted to welcome Anna to our BSO family. We have been very impressed by Anna's maturity and her ability to communicate with the orchestra, and I look forward to working with her in the years to come," says BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons.
Anna Handler is a German-Colombian conductor and pianist who grew up in Munich. She is currently a Dudamel Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 2023/2024 season. Following her debut at the 2022 Salzburg Festival as musical director of the Káťa Kabanová opera camp, Handler was immediately reappointed to conduct new productions of "L'enfant et les sortilèges" (2023) and "Die Kluge" (2024).
Other highlights of the 2023/24 season include her debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra and North Carolina Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Graz Philharmonic and the Munich Radio Orchestra.
Anna Handler has assisted renowned conductors such as Kirill Petrenko (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra), Daniel Harding (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), Barbara Hannigan (London Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra) as well as Manfred Honeck and Simone Young.
At the Bavarian State Opera, she assisted Oksana Lyniv and took over the musical direction of the production "Eva und Adam", which premiered at the 2019 Munich Opera Festival.
As founder and director of the ensemble "Enigma Classica", Handler has worked with renowned soloists such as Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Müller-Schott and Sabine Meyer. Together with her Enigma Classica team, Handler presented an interdisciplinary music education project with generative real-time video animation at the Festival of Young Artists in Bayreuth in August 2022.
Anna Handler studied piano and conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, the Accademia Pianistica di Imola, the Folkwang University of the Arts, the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar and the Juilliard School in New York. Her mentors include Ingrid Fliter, Pavel Gililov and Henri Sigfridsson, Ekhart Wycik, Johannes Schlaefli and Piero Lombardi Iglesias.
[14 February 2024]