Oksana Lyniv conducts Verdi’s ‘Messa da Requiem’

Oksana Lyniv has been the music director of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna since 2022, making her the first female chief conductor of an Italian opera house

She made history as the first female conductor in the history of the Bayreuth Festival with her debut production of “The Flying Dutchman” to open the festival in 2021. Following the sensational success of the premiere, she was engaged in Bayreuth until 2024.

In February 2024, Lyniv made her debut as the first Ukrainian female conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, conducting Puccini’s Turandot with great success.

Her greatest successes include performances at the Bavarian State Opera, the Berlin State Opera, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Frankfurt Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, ​​the Theater an der Wien and the Stuttgart State Opera.

Oksana Lyniv is also passionately committed to promoting young musical talent and is the founder and chief conductor of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (YsOU).

Known for her exceptional combination of precision and artistic temperament in her conducting, Oksana Lyniv is a prominent figure on the international stage and is one of the leading conductors of the younger generation.

The 2025–2026 season brings impressive highlights for Oksana Lyniv, including her long-awaited return to the Metropolitan Opera with Turandot and to the Opéra National de Paris with Tosca.

She makes her debuts with the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de Paris, and the National Orchestra of Spain, and returns to the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin with Verdi’s Requiem at the Berlin Philharmonie. She also makes her South American debut with the Orchestra of the National Opera of Chile and conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for the first time. In October 2025, Lyniv concludes her first Wagner Ring cycle at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna with concert performances of Götterdämmerung. Another Italian debut follows in February 2026 with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo.

In July and August 2026, she returns for the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival with four performances of The Flying Dutchman.

Furthermore, Lyniv continues its close collaboration with the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and conducts several international tours with its Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

“Lyniv channels these cosmic and philosophical forces by delving into very profound levels of dramaturgy, only to then return to the listener the compelling continuity of a taut narrative that makes four hours of music seem like a moment, constantly teetering on the edge of a tension that Manzoni maintained without relenting. For one evening, Bologna felt like Bayreuth, the Wagnerian temple where Lyniv is now a constant presence, perhaps one day even in the entire Ring Cycle (which will conclude in Bologna next year with the stages of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung).” La Repubblica

Her international concert career is flourishing: As a guest conductor, she collaborates with numerous leading orchestras worldwide, including the Munich Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the DSO Berlin, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Korean National Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano.

Oksana Lyniv first gained international attention as a finalist in the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition, winning third prize. In the following years, she continued her studies at the Dresden University of Music, and from 2008 to 2013 she served as assistant principal conductor at the Odessa National Opera.

From 2013 to 2017, she worked as musical assistant to General Music Director Kirill Petrenko and as a conductor at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In 2014, she made her important European conducting debut at the Bavarian State Opera with Mozart’s “La clemenza di Tito.” She subsequently led highly successful revivals of works such as Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” Richard Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos,” and Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” as well as new productions, including Britten’s “Albert Herring,” Boris Blacher’s “Die Flut,” Rossini’s “Le Comte Ory,” and Ruder’s “Selma Jezková” as part of the Bavarian State Opera’s Opera Studio and the Munich Opera Festival.

From 2017 to 2020 she was chief conductor of the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra.

Alongside her meteoric career, Oksana Lyniv is passionately committed to promoting classical music internationally and within Ukraine. This makes her one of the most prominent figures in the cultural landscape of her homeland.

She has received numerous international awards and accolades, including the Bavarian State Opera Festival Prize in 2015 and the prestigious TREBBIA International Award in the category “For Artistic Activities” (Czech Republic) in 2019. In November 2020, Oksana Lyniv received the Opera!Award as Best Conductor of the Year. In 2021, she was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Merit of Princess Olga, and in 2022, she was named a laureate of the European Helena Vaz da Silva Prize for her efforts to raise public awareness of cultural heritage. In 2023, she received the special Opera!Award for “Outstanding Commitment.” In 2024, she was awarded the Bavarian Constitutional Order, the highest state award in Bavaria, Germany, “for her extraordinary artistic achievements, especially as the first female conductor of the Bayreuth Festival, and for her passionate commitment to promoting classical music and supporting young talent in this field.”

In 2016, Oksana Lyniv co-founded the LvivMozArt International Festival of Classical Music in Lviv, Ukraine. She also initiated a comprehensive international research project on the personality of Franz Xaver Mozart in collaboration with the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg.

Also in 2016, at her initiative, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (YsOU) was founded, the first and only youth orchestra in Ukraine. The orchestra has become a platform for the development of young musicians from all regions of Ukraine. It performs regularly on the biggest international stages and has gained international recognition through impressive performances, including in Bonn (Beethovenfest Bonn), Leipzig (Bachfest), Berlin (Young Euro Classic), Lucerne (Lucerne Festival), Bayreuth (Bayreuth Youth Artist Festival), Graz (Musikverein Graz), Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet), Brussels (BOZAR), Teatro Grande di Brescia, and Bologna (Respighi Festival).

The Berlin Philharmonic’s sponsorship of the Youth Orchestra of Ukraine, as well as its long-standing cooperation with the German National Youth Orchestra, confirm the orchestra’s outstanding reputation. In 2021, the orchestra was awarded the Saxon Mozart Prize and received the title “Young Ambassadors of European Mozart Trails.” In 2022, the YsOU was honored with the Music Prize of the City of Duisburg.

In 2022, after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Oksana Lyniv became a co-initiator of the cooperation project “Music for the Future”, an evacuation music camp for young Ukrainian musicians in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

During the Russian war against Ukraine, Oksana Lyniv proves herself to be a devoted cultural ambassador for her country and passionately advocates for the performance of Ukrainian composers on international stages.

With around 60 concerts annually, CD recordings, and international performances, the Rundfunkchor Berlin is one of the world’s leading choirs. Three Grammy Awards alone stand as a testament to the quality of its recordings. Its wide-ranging repertoire, flexible, richly nuanced sound, flawless precision, and compelling presence make the professional choir a partner of choice for prominent orchestras and conductors, including Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In Berlin, the choir has an intense collaboration with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, as well as with their chief conductors.

The Rundfunkchor Berlin also attracts international attention with its interdisciplinary projects, which break the traditional concert format and offer new ways of experiencing choral music. A milestone was the staged interpretation of Brahms’ Requiem as a “human requiem” by Jochen Sandig and a team from Sasha Waltz & Guests. After performances in New York, Hong Kong, Paris, and Adelaide, the production traveled to Istanbul for the first time in the summer of 2019. For the project LUTHER dancing with the gods, the choir reflected on Luther’s impact on the arts and within the arts in a genre-defying concert performance with Robert Wilson and music by Bach, Nystedt, and Reich. For TIME TRAVELLERS, the choir will transform the Berliner Radialsystem into a walkable time tunnel in the 2019/2020 season. Based on Jonathan Dove’s composition The Passing of the Year, the project will create an interactive choral experience with films, images, performance, and music.

Through its community projects targeting diverse audiences – such as the large sing-along concert at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Festival of Choral Cultures for choirs from around the world, and the Song Market for Berlin students – the Rundfunkchor Berlin aims to inspire as many people as possible to sing. Its comprehensive educational program SING! focuses on the sustainable networking of various partners to promote singing as a natural part of Berlin’s elementary school curriculum. With the Academy and Schola, as well as the International Master Class Berlin, the ensemble is committed to nurturing the next generation of professional singers and conductors.

Founded in 1925, the Rundfunkchor Berlin celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2015. The choir has been shaped by conductors such as Helmut Koch, Dietrich Knothe (1982–93), Robin Gritton (1994–2001), and Simon Halsey (2001–2015). Since the 2015/16 season, Dutch conductor Gijs Leenaars has been the chief conductor and artistic director of the ensemble. Simon Halsey remains connected to the choir as an honorary conductor and guest conductor. The Rundfunkchor Berlin is an ensemble of the Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin, under the sponsorship of Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin, and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.