About the artist
sought-after conductor and author
Career
Born in Zurich in 1983, Lena-Lisa studied violin and conducting at Basel Conservatory, as well as musicology and economics at Basel University. Her PhD thesis took as its subject the recording history of Mahler’s Symphony No 4. She deepened her studies with Sylvia Caduff and Sir Roger Norrington and was assistant conductor to Claudio Abbado. She held scholarships from the Swiss Study Foundation, the Deutsche Bank Foundation Academy Opera Today and the Ernst Göhner Foundation.
On Stage
Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer is Music Director of the Swiss Orchestra and, since 2022, Artistic Director of Andermatt Music at the Andermatt Concert Hall. She is fast building a reputation as a conductor of meticulous technique, contagious passion and rare intellectual insight. Lena-Lisa is an active international guest conductor. In that capacity, she has worked with ensembles including the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Pomeranian Philharmonic Bydgoszcz, Camerata Schweiz, Basel Sinfonietta, Sinfonietta Berne, Sinfonietta de Lausanne, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Corund Lucerne, Orchestre Symphonique du Jura, Orchestra of Europe, Capriccio Baroque Orchestra, Zakhar Bron Festival Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic and the Odense Symphony Orchestra. In recent seasons, Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer has performed with the Swiss Orchestra and soloists Oliver Schnyder, Heinz Holliger, Marie-Claude Chappuis, Alina Pogostkina, Alice Belugou, Christoph Pfändler and Noldi Alder regularly in such established concert halls in Switzerland as the Tonhalle Zurich, the Casino Bern, the Stadtcasino Basel or the Victoria Hall Geneva, and has appeared in the Auditorium Nacional d'España or Kursaal San Sebastián.
Publication
In addition to her practical music making, Lena-Lisa is also known for her research on interpretation and reception history, with a particular focus on Gustav Mahler and Felix Weingartner. Her publication Mahler-Interpretation heute: Perspektiven der Rezeption zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts was excellently reviewed by Neue Zürcher Zeitung and was followed in 2019 by Klingender Zeitgeist, on the subject of Mahler's Symphony No 4. In this capacity, Lena-Lisa has frequently been invited to give guest lectures at Basel University.
