Giedrė Šlekytė & Victor Julien-Laferrière

Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, Giedrė Šlekytė began her musical education at the National M. K. Čiurlionis Art-School in Vilnius. She went on to study conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, the Academy of Music and Theatre in Leipzig and the Zurich University of Arts. She also attended masterclasses by Bernhard Haitink and Riccardo Muti.

In the 2024/25 season, Šlekytė will make her debuts at the Wiener Staatsoper (Boheme) and Royal Opera House in London (Hansel and Gretel), as well as returning to Musiktheater an der Wien for a new production of Das Paradies und die Peri and Staatsoper Berlin with The Pearl Fishers and Sacre. Upcoming symphonic projects encompass debuts with the Dallas Symphony (also marking her debut in the USA), Philharmonia London and Tokyo NHK Symphony, as well as returns to Münchner Philharmoniker, SWR Symphonieorchester, RSB Berlin and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra.

In 2016, Šlekytė was appointed Principal Conductor of Stadttheater Klagenfurt, where she led her first own production – Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio. Since then, audience and press have heaped praise on the young Lithuanian maestra, citing the freshness, precision and dynamism of her interpretations. Finishing her appointment in Klagenfurt in 2018, Šlekytė chose a freelance career as a conductor and has since been successfully combining operatic and symphonic projects.

As a guest conductor she has performed with the Wiener Symphoniker, Münchner Philharmoniker, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Tokyo Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Netherlands Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, and many others.

In November 2023, jumping in for Daniel Barenboim, she conducted Brahms’ highly acclaimed symphony cycle in Toronto with the Berlin Staatskapelle, marking both her Canadian and North American debut.

Operatic engagements led her to Bayerische Staatsoper, Oper Zürich, Staatsoper Berlin, Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, and Semperoper Dresden. Among the most memorable new productions are Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen at Musiktheater an der Wien and Kát’a Kabanová at Komische Oper Berlin, Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at Royal Danish Opera, Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka at Opera Ballett Vlaanderen, and Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at Oper Frankfurt.

In 2015 she was a finalist of the Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award and a prize winner of the Malko International Young Conductors Competition in Copenhagen. In 2018 she was nominated in the “Newcomer” category of the International Opera Awards.

Šlekytė is an active ambassador of Lithuanian music and has performed works by Raminta Šerkšnytė, Bronius Kutavičius, Osvaldas Balakauskas, Justė Janulytė, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and other Lithuanian composers in Austria, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Germany and Israel. With conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, she recorded an album of Raminta Šerkšnytė’s music, which was released by Deutsche Grammophon, as well as the highly acclaimed Žibuoklė Martinaitytė album for Ondine.