City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra appoints 29-year-old Lithuanian Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as its Music Director

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, assistant conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, inside Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra have announced that Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla will succeed Andris Nelsons as their Music Director in September 2016. She has signed an initial three-year contract. Recently appointed Music Director of the Salzburg Landestheater with the start of the 2015/16 season and promoted to the new post of Associate Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic as of July 2016, Mirga has not ceased to electrify orchestras and audiences alike. A Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2012/13, Gražinytė-Tyla is the 2012 winner of the prestigious Nestle and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award. Subsequently, she made her debut with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a symphonic concert at the Salzburger Festspiele. This season in North America, Mirga made her debut with the symphony orchestras of San Diego and Detroit. She will return to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in March and for a Hollywood Bowl concert. She made her CBSO debut last year.