Anna Handler
Conductor-in-Residence
About this Artist
Anna Handler has been present on stages and in concert halls around the world since her debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2022.
In November 2025, she was appointed Chief Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra and will assume her position in the 2026/27 season. She will also begin a three-year term as Conductor-in-Residence at the LA Phil in 2026/27. Since the 2025/26 season, she has served as Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she was invited to lead 11 opera performances in her first season. In 2024, she was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by Andris Nelsons and will complete her two-year term in the summer of 2026. Prior to that, she served as a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Following her debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall, she was immediately invited to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in July 2025. Last summer, Handler made her highly acclaimed debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
For the 2026/27 anniversary season, Anna Handler will serve as Artist in Residence at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn. There, she will curate four concerts in which she will appear as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor.
In her concerts in the summer of 2026 at the Hollywood Bowl and at Tanglewood, Beethoven’s works—including the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies as well as the Triple Concerto—will once again occupy a central place. During the 2025/26 season, Handler also gave her subscription debuts with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Collaborations with Barbara Hannigan, Sabine Meyer, Yo-Yo Ma, and Augustin Hadelich are among the highlights of her career to date.
Handler’s relationship with the Salzburg Festival began in 2022 with her debut as Music Director of Leoš Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová in the renowned Opera Camp series, followed by Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges in 2023 and Carl Orff’s Die Kluge in 2024.
Handler grew up in Munich and initially studied piano and conducting at the University of Music and Theatre Munich. She continued her training at the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar, the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale di Imola, and the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.
She was the first conducting student ever to receive the prestigious Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School in New York, where she completed her Master’s degree in 2023.
As director of the ensemble Enigma Classica, which she founded in 2019, Anna Handler works with distinguished soloists. A particular focus of her work is technology-supported music mediation in real time.
Conducting from the piano, as well as her chamber music collaboration with violinist Laura Handler, form an important part of her musical identity.
Anna Handler received the Rising Star Award from the European Cultural Foundation Europamusicale and is a scholarship holder of the German Foundation for Musical Life. She was also awarded the Maria Ladenburger Prize for Music in cooperation with WDR, the Cusanuswerk Foundation, and Deutsche Grammophon.