Bio

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.

In 2021, she made history as the first female conductor in the history of the Bayreuth Festival, opening the festival with her debut production of The Flying Dutchman. Following the sensational success of this premiere, she was engaged at Bayreuth through 2024.

In February 2024, Lyniv made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as the first Ukrainian conductor ever, leading Puccini's Turandot to tremendous success.

Her notable achievements include performances at the Bavarian State Opera, the State Opera Berlin, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Oper Frankfurt, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Theater an der Wien, and the Stuttgart State Opera.

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

Renowned for her exceptional combination of precision and artistic temperament, Lyniv is a prominent figure on the international stage, ranking among the leading conductors of her generation.

The 2024-2025 season holds impressive highlights for Lyniv, including her long-anticipated return to the Opéra National de Paris for The Magic Flute, a return engagement with the Barenboim-Said Academy and the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, and a symphonic debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Mozart Week. She will also revive the celebrated Rusalka production at the Stuttgart State Opera, make her debut with Tosca at the Oslo Opera House, lead a concert production of Siegfried at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and give concert debuts with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal and the Copenhagen Phil in Denmark. Additionally, she will conduct Puccinis Madam Butterfly at the Tokyo Spring Festival and debut with a new production of Eugene Onegin at the Semperoper Dresden.

In September 2024, Lyniv returned to the Bavarian State Opera with Tosca, and in October, she led a concert production of Die Walküre in Bologna as the second chapter of Wagner's Ring cycle with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

"Lyniv governs these cosmic and philosophical forces by entering the dramaturgy at very profound levels, but then returning, to the listener, the pressing continuity of a tight narration, which makes four hours of music feel like a flash, always lived on the edge of a tension that the Manzoni has held up without giving in. For an evening Bologna lived as in Bayreuth, the Wagnerian temple where Lyniv is now a permanent presence, perhaps one day even in the entire Ring (which in Bologna will complete next year, in the stages of Siegfried and Twilight)." La Reppublica

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

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

From 2013 to 2017, she worked as musical assistant to GMD Kirill Petrenko at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In 2014, she made her important debut on the European stage as a conductor at the Bavarian State Opera with Mozart's "La clemenza di Tito." With great success, she conducted further revivals of works such as Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," R. Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos," and "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" by D. Shostakovich, as well as new productions, including Britten's "Albert Herring" and Boris Blacher's "The Deluge," Rossini's "Le Comte Ory," Ruders' "Selma Jezková" as part of the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera, and the Munich Opera Festival.

From 2017 to 2020, she served as chief conductor of the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic.

Parallel to her steep career, Oksana Lyniv is passionately committed to the promotion of classical music on an international level and in Ukraine. Thus, she plays a significant role as one of the outstanding personalities in the cultural landscape of her homeland.

She has been awarded several international titles and prizes, including the Festival Prize of the Bavarian State Opera 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 for Best Conductor of the Year 2020. In 2021, she was honored with the Ukrainian Order of Princess Olga, and in 2022, she became the laureate of the European Helena Vaz da Silva Award for raising public awareness about cultural heritage. In 2023, she received the special Opera! Award for "Outstanding Engagement". In 2024 she was honored with the Bavarian Constitutional Medal, the highest state award in Bavaria, Germany, for "for her extraordinary artistic work, especially as the first female conductor of the Bayreuth Festival, and for her passionate commitment to promoting classical music and supporting young talents in this area."

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

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

The Berlin Philharmonic's patronage of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, along with the longstanding collaboration with the Bundesjugendorchester, confirms the orchestra's outstanding reputation. In 2021, the orchestra was awarded the Saxon Mozart Prize and received the title "Young Ambassadors of European Mozart Ways." In 2022, the YsOU was honored with the Music Prize of the City of Duisburg.

In 2022, after the outbreak of the 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.

In times of the Russian war against Ukraine, Oksana Lyniv emerges as a dedicated cultural ambassador of her country. She passionately advocates for the performance of Ukrainian composers on international stages.

“All of this happens with a dancer's body tension. You think you can literally see the energy floating between her and the musicians…. "

(Die ZEIT, the 20th of September, 2018)

In the end, Oksana Lyniv was the loudly acclaimed conductor. In this one evening she had brought all, really all, facets of Bártók over the ramp! Clear, meticulous are her gestures. Sense for slim dramaturgy, for an extraordinary tonal range from soft to hard, from gentle to razor-sharp. The Bavarian State Orchestra read all the wishes from her eyes of the great expert at the conductor's desk. The sound pattern: from delicate to extremely compact. Still not for a moment overdriven or even noisy! Trumpet and trombone choir, the flute’s and bassoon’s solos: others won’t be able to imitate that soon!

(Onlinemerker, February 2020)

«One of the God's greatest gifts to people is the gift of choice. And it is this question of choice that is relevant to me every day. Every evening I ask myself what I lived today for? The most important thing for me is to be a co-creator of my life, the life of our (and my) country and so that of our entire civilization.»

O. Lyniv