The power of silence
A portrait of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla The power of silence A portrait of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla caused a stir when she was appointed as chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the age of only twenty-nine. Her predecessors in the post included Sir Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo and Andris Nelsons. For her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker the Lithuanian conductor has put together an unusual programme made up of music by Mieczysław Weinberg, Sergei Prokofiev and the legendary film composer John Williams. 

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla appears punctually for her online interview. Unless she is able to manage her time precisely, nothing will work for the Lithuanian conductor. She has just taken her son to school in Salzburg, where the family lives, and spent the first lesson singing with his first class. “I was even a bit excited,” she reports with a laugh. “You never know who you might meet and how it will turn out.” Exactly the same could be said of her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker; excitement, says Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, “has a lot to do with pleasure and with the mobilization of one’s forces”.

In April, she will be appearing for the first time with the Berliner Philharmoniker, which she says feels like ascending “the Mount Olympus of the gods”. Her inspiration has always been the Abbado era, when the “ideal” was to “move as far away as possible from authoritarian figures and operate as equals”. This is how she would like to meet the Berlin musicians, she says: with openness and trust. “Bernstein once said: ‘I need to win them over all over again before every rehearsal.’ That’s exactly how it is!” For her, that means arriving at the rehearsal well prepared. “The more deeply you are immersed in the material, the easier it is to find the key that allows the music to cast its magic spell.”

Despite her slight stature, she exudes a vibrant energy and intensity on the podium, and her connection with the players is almost palpable. In conversation, by contrast, she seems calm and almost serenely composed. She takes her time when speaking, pausing to formulate her thoughts, which she does with precision. She added the word “Tyla” to her name, and it suits her, since it means stillness, calm and silence. Her career, too, has been mapped out with care and with a clear sense of direction. 

Profound love of Mieczysław Weinberg’s music

When Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla signed a contract with Deutsche Grammophon only a few years later, she made a conscious decision to record music by Mieczysław Weinberg for her debut album, rather than with more popular works. She speaks of her profound love of the music of this Polish composer whose parents and sister were murdered by the Nazis. His horror at the concentration camps was processed and reworked in pieces such as his Thirteenth Symphony and his opera The Passenger.

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla was still a child when she first encountered Weinberg’s music after “the miracle of Lithuanian independence” and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then there were cartoons on television for which Weinberg had written the soundtrack. In turn, she associated this music with the world of Burattino and The Golden Key, a ballet about the Russian Pinocchio. She describes it as “character music of great refinement and profundity,” adding with enthusiasm that it is “incredibly witty, ebullient, virtuosic, colourful and clearly related to Prokofiev”. Film music is the thread that links together the items on her debut programme with the Berliner Philharmoniker, since all three composers have also written for the cinema.

The Piano Concerto by John Williams – the winner of multiple Academy Awards – received its first performance at Tanglewood in July 2025, when the conductor was Andris Nelsons and the soloist was the work’s dedicatee, Emanuel Ax. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla will be conducting it for the first time in Berlin, and the soloist will again be Emanuel Ax. She tells me that immediately after our conversation she is going off to collect a copy of the score: “I’ve had a digital copy for some time, but for me the haptic element is important if I am to immerse myself properly in a piece.” So this is a normal day for Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, divided between taking one of her children to school, studying scores, and appearing on the concert platform. If she has to recharge her batteries, she prefers to do so in the world of nature in her native Lithuania. “The forests there are an incredible source of strength and inspiration,” she says. “Of course, it’s hard to survive the long winter darkness, but in summer, the light pulsates with enormous vitality and energy.”