Joana Mallwitz

Joana Mallwitz has served as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin since the beginning of the 2023/24 season. On the international stage, she has been recognized as one of the leading conductors of her generation—particularly since her acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2020 with Mozart’s Così fan tutte.

In the opera pit, Mallwitz has celebrated major successes at the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Bavarian State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Frankfurt Opera, and the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen.

She also appears regularly with the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.

In the 2025/26 season, Mallwitz will open the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden together with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and a new production of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin—marking the beginning of a long-term collaboration with both the festival and the orchestra. She will also return to the Zurich Opera House with Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, opening the first season under the opera house’s new artistic leadership.

A Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist, Mallwitz received the OPUS Klassik Award as Conductor of the Year for her CD The Kurt Weill Album, recorded with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Together with incoming Intendant Tobias Rempe, she will continue her successful collaboration at the Konzerthaus Berlin. In addition to subscription concerts, a recording of Haydn’s The Creation and a European tour—with stops in Hamburg, Linz, and Cologne, among others—are planned.

Mallwitz became the youngest General Music Director in Europe when she took up the position at the Theater Erfurt in the 2014/15 season. After four successful years, she moved to the Staatstheater Nuremberg in 2018 in the same role. Her productions and formats there attracted wide national attention, and after her first season in 2019, she was named Conductor of the Year by the critics' survey of Opernwelt. Initiatives such as her “Expedition Concerts”, the Orchestra Academy founded in Erfurt, and the “Junge Staatsphilharmonie” launched in Nuremberg remain outstanding successes. In April 2024, the Staatsphilharmonie Nuremberg named her Honorary Conductor—a title bestowed for the first time in the orchestra’s over 100-year history. 

Born in Hildesheim, Mallwitz studied at the University of Music, Drama and Media Hanover. She is a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit. In 2023, the Federal President of Germany awarded her the Federal Cross of Merit at Schloss Bellevue in recognition of her longstanding work in classical music education and youth development.

The documentary film “Joana Mallwitz – Momentum”, directed by Günter Atteln and released in spring 2024, garnered strong interest from both audiences and media. 

Joana Mallwitz lives in Berlin with her family.