Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla was named Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in February 2016, following in the footsteps of Sir Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, and Andris Nelsons. She stepped down as Music Director of the CBSO at the end of 2021-22 and assumed the role of Principal Guest Conductor for the 2022-2023 season. Recent highlights include numerous tours with the CBSO in Europe, an 8 city tour of the United States in October of 2022, with concerts in Santa Barbara, Costa Mesa, LosAngeles, Davis, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Washington DC and at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Gražinyte-Tyla has electrified audiences across continents. In Europe, she has collaborated with the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, the London Symphony, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie, as well as the Danish National Symphony, the Mozarteum Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin. She has enjoyed a dynamic collaboration with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, has led operas in Heidelberg, Salzburg, Komische Oper Berlin, and Bern, where she served as First Kapellmeister.

In North America, she has worked with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Diego, and conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in her Carnegie Hall debut in May 2018. With the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gražinyte-Tyla was a Dudamel Fellow (2012-13), AssistantConductor (2014-16), and Associate Conductor (2016-17). She was also the MusicDirector of the Salzburg Landestheater from 2015 to 2017.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon Artist, her first album featured composer Mieczysław Weinberg’s Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 21, with Gidon Kremer, the CBSO, and Kremerata Baltica. The album was nominated for a Grammy and received a Gramophone Classical Music Award as well as an Opus Klassik in 2020. The next release, featured music of her compatriot Raminta Šerkšnytė followed by an album of works by British composers with the CBSO.

Gražinyte-Tyla was discovered by the German Conducting Forum (Deutsches Dirigentenforum) in April 2009. Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, into a musical family, she studied at the Music Conservatories of Leipzig, Zurich and Bologna, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in choral and orchestral conducting from the University of Music and Fine Arts, in Graz, Austria. Mirga participated in numerous masterclasses and conducting workshops with distinguished professors & mentors including Christian Ehwald, George Alexander Albrecht, Johannes Schlaefli, Herbert Blomstedt, and Colin Metters.
Winner of the 2012 Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award, she subsequently made her debut conducting the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra at the SalzburgerFestspiele.  

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