Assistant conductors of the Boston Symphony Orchestra occupy a distinguished place in the orchestra’s history. Its assistant conductor program provides up-and-coming conductors the invaluable experience of leading one of the world’s great orchestras and working with the BSO’s music director and guest conductors as they prepare the orchestra for performances at Tanglewood, Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall, and international venues.
Then BSO Assistant Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas achieved instant fame when he replaced an ailing William Steinberg (BSO Music Director, 1969–1972) in the middle of a performance. He then went on to even greater acclaim leading the San Francisco, New World, and London Symphony Orchestras. The same story has played out with other assistant conductors. Shi-Yeon Sung—the BSO’s first female assistant conductor—is principal guest conductor of the Auckland Philharmonia. Ken-David Masur now holds the position of music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He, Samy Rachid, Earl Lee, and Anna Rakitina will all conduct at Tanglewood this summer.
German-born Anna Handler is a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 2023–2024 season. At the Juilliard School, Handler studied with David Robertson and was the very first conductor to win Juilliard’s Kovner Fellowship, graduating in 2023.
She followed her 2022 debut as musical director of the Káťa Kabanová opera camp at the Salzburg Festival with an immediate re-engagement as conductor of new productions of “L’enfant et les sortilèges” (2023) and “Die Kluge” (2024). Highlights of 2023–2024 include debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Grazer Philharmoniker, and Münchner Rundfunkorchester. During the 2022–2023 season, Handler debuted with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Sinfonieorchester Liechtenstein, OFUNAM Orchestra in Mexico, and Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin.
Handler has assisted such prominent conductors as Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Harding, Barbara Hannigan, Manfred Honeck, and Simone Young. Most notably, she assisted Oksana Lyniv at the Bayerische Staatsoper and took over musical direction of “Eve and Adam” when it premiered for the 2019 Munich Opera Festival.
As founding director of the ensemble Enigma Classica, Handler has collaborated with such artists as Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Müller-Schott, and Sabine Meyer. In August 2022, at the Young Artist Festival Bayreuth, Handler and her team presented an interdisciplinary project on music education that featured real-time generative video animations.
Handler won the Maria Ladenburger Förderpreis in cooperation with Deutsche Grammophon and the Cusanuswerk Foundation and received the Rising Star Award from the European Cultural Foundation Europamusicale.
Handler studied piano and conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, the Accademia Pianistica di Imola, the Folkwang University of the Arts, and the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” Weimar. Her mentors include Ingrid Fliter; Pavel Gililov and Henri Sigfridsson; Ekhart Wycik; Johannes Schlaefli; and Piero Lombardi Iglesias. She says performing chamber music with violinist Laura Handler and conducting from the piano are essential to her musical identity.
In a written statement on Thursday, Handler said:
It is an immense honor to be joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra as assistant conductor. The storied history and unique sound of this orchestra fascinate me, and I cannot wait to dive deep into the orchestra’s approach to music. I greatly look forward to working with Music Director Andris Nelsons and the musicians and connecting with the community of Boston.
