Anna Skryleva

Conductor, composer, pianist, and synesthete, Anna Skryleva was awarded the prestigious Opus Klassik Award in 2024 and has garnered international attention for her profound musical work.

As a composing conductor, she is passionately dedicated to expanding the orchestral and opera repertoire. Her rediscovery and world premiere of Eugen Engel’s opera Grete Minde in 2022 caused an international sensation and is considered a discovery of the century. During her tenure as a General Music Director at the Theatre Magdeburg (2019–2025), numerous successful projects were realised, earning her international recognition: the Special Prize for “Innovative Orchestra 2019” by the German Orchestra Foundation, a nomination for the “International Opera Awards 2022,” co-commissions with leading orchestras from Canada, England, and the USA, as well as the Opus Klassik Award 2024, are just a few of her significant achievements.

Her career path follows the traditional trajectory of a General Music Director: from solo pianist to repetiteur, assistant, and conductor. She was the musical assistant of Simone Young (2007 – 2012) and participated in the Institute for Women Conductors at the Dallas Opera.

She regularly appears as a guest conductor at prestigious opera houses and with leading orchestras, including the Hamburg State Opera, the Royal Swedish Opera, the Dallas Opera, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen Phil, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Her versatile repertoire spans the Viennese classical era of Mozart and Beethoven, German and Russian Romanticism from Tchaikovsky to Wagner, and Strauss, as well as the Italian “bell canto” and “verismo” of Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini. She also pays special attention to 20th-century music, focusing on Britten, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev, as well as contemporary music. In close collaboration with composers such as Auerbach, Konstantia Gourzi, and Master of the King’s Music Errollyn Wallen’s groundbreaking projects continue to emerge. The conductor also enjoys close collaborations with international soloists and singers such as Andreas Schager, Camilla Nylund and Vida Miknevičute, violinist Arabella Steinbacher, and pianists Lucas &Arthur Jussen and horn player Felix Klieser.

Her upcoming engagements for the season 25/26 include a debut at Teatro alla Scala with the world premiere of Silvia Colasanti’s Anna A, Opera Australia with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Bizet’s Carmen (new at Malmö Opera)

As a composer, Skryleva publishes with Universal Edition Vienna and has created several opera and orchestral arrangements for theatres in Magdeburg and Winterthur. Recent works include Lullaby (2023) and the orchestral premieres of 3 Impromptus in C and Mirror (2024). Mirror is based on the Solresol language and inspired by her own poetry. In October 2025, the world premiere of Scherzo for Horn and Orchestra will take place, a work composed by Skryleva for the renowned horn player Felix Klieser, which will be part of a concert for horn and orchestra.

Anna Skryleva is based with her Family in Berlin.