Joana Mallwitz
Joana Mallwitz has been chief conductor and artistic director of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin since the 2023/24 season, making her the first woman to head one of Berlin's major orchestras. Her acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2020 with Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" solidified her place as one of the outstanding conductors of her generation. Ms. Mallwitz has also enjoyed great success at the Nationale Opera Amsterdam, the Semperoper Dresden, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, the Royal Danish Opera, the Norwegian National Opera and the Zurich Opera.
As a symphonic conductor, Ms. Mallwitz has conducted the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and SWR Symphony Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia, the Munich Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, among others. In the capacity of Portrait Artist of the Vienna Musikverein, she conducted the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the RSO Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to her concerts with the Konzerthausorchester, the 23/24 season includes her operatic debut in Berlin at the Staatsoper unter den Linden with "Der Rosenkavalier" by Richard Strauss. Furthermore, she will appear with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic in symphonic concerts following successful joint opera productions with those orchestras. Also on the schedule this season are her debuts with the NDR Elbphilharmonieorchester, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and her U.S. debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She will make return performances with the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.
Following her longstanding engagement as Kapellmeister at Theater Heidelberg, Joana Mallwitz took up her first music director post at Theater Erfurt in the 2014/2015 season as Europe's youngest General Music Director. From 2018 through 2023, she served as General Music Director at the Staatstheater Nuremberg, where she was named "Conductor of the Year" in 2019 and led numerous opera productions, concerts, and experimental performances to resounding success, including the popular "Expedition Concerts." Likewise, the academy and orchestra she founded for young people, the Orchestra Academy in Erfurt and the Junge Staatsphilharmonie in Nuremberg, remain success stories to this day.
Born in Hildesheim, Germany, Joana Mallwitz studied conducting with Martin Brauß and Eiji Oue, and piano with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Bernd Goetzke at the Hanover University of Music and Drama.
Joana Mallwitz is a recipient of the Bavarian Order of the Constitution.
She lives in Berlin with her husband and son.
