Biography
2023-2024 Overview
Hannah von Wiehler (née Schneider) is currently the music director of Orchestra VOX (UK) and the assistant conductor of Opéra National de Bordeaux, where she conducts the orchestra regularly.
She is known as a trail-blazer and free-thinker, having launched her own orchestra and created critically-acclaimed multi-genre, multi-media programming for it. She is also one of the brightest conductors of her generation – not only in possession of exceptional artistic vision, but also of a doctorate from the University of Oxford, and a natural affinity for languages: she speaks seven languages, and is now tackling her eighth.
The 2023-2024 concert season sees von Wiehler make her debut with the Southbank Sinfonia (UK), the Hohot Philharmonic Orchestra (China), and the Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine, with who she also is performing a regional tour across four cities in France. Von Wiehler also conducts the world premiere of a new work by Augusta Read Thomas at Carnegie Hall, where she leads the Sejong Soloists. In autumn 2023, she commenced her position as Assistant Conductor at Opéra National de Bordeaux, where her role entails conducting regular rehearsals, concerts, and assisting and covering for over a dozen guest conductors. Alongside her guest conducting and work in France, von Wiehler continues her tenure as Music Director of Orchestra VOX in Oxford, UK, where her programming includes UK premieres of works by Cuban-American composer Tania Léon, an ambitious double-bill opera of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, and a programme designed to reveal the psychological intricacies of Shakespeare’s character Ophelia from Hamlet, featuring the music of Hans Abrahamsen, Sergei Prokofiev, and fused theatre and film elements.
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In 2016, Hannah founded Orchestra VOX (formerly known as Oxford Alternative Orchestra), an ensemble dedicated to the intersection of classical music and social impact, based in Oxford, UK now in its 8th season. In this role, she pioneers unusual programming, including a novel fusion of classics, new commissions, and some of the 21st-century’s most daring and genre- defying composers, such as Caroline Shaw, Michael Gordon, and Tania Léon. She also prioritises experimenting with friendly, non-traditional performance spaces in order to encourage wider community access to classical music, and as such the orchestra has performed in homeless shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, refugee detention centres, and even bars, in addition to more traditional concert halls. The 2022-2023 season emphasised engaging with Ukrainian refugees in Oxford. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, von Wiehler launched the Chrysalis Project: a multi-national initiative connecting internationally renowned film-makers, choreographers, composers, and Orchestra VOX. Von Wiehler led this project to create a series of short films, forging connections between multiple artistic genres and across continents – a way of instilling a message of new hope in a time of darkness.
Previously, von Wiehler has appeared frequently in the United Kingdom, on numerous occasions with the London Chamber Orchestra (with whom, in addition to concert work, she also has recorded two albums of the works of Ruth Gipps and Benjamin Britten), the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, and with Opera Holland Park in London, where she led performances of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. In 2022, she was awarded the Carlos Miguel Prieto Conducting Fellowship, 1 of 9 fellows, out of an application pool of 500. She was recognised as the top conductor in the programme, and was subsequently invited to work alongside Paolo Bortolameolli in Mexico in 2023. Previously von Wiehler has assisted Barbara Hannigan with the London Symphony Orchestra, and Simone Young with the NSO Washington. Other recent and forthcoming performance highlights for Hannah include returns with the International Symphony Orchestra Lviv, and numerous orchestras throughout Europe and the United States. Until February 2022, von Wiehler appeared frequently as a guest conductor in Russia; she has chosen to curtail these activities for the time being.
Born to American parents, von Wiehler was raised in Moscow, where she developed an early passion in for the art, music, and stories that originated behind the Iron Curtain. Her musical gifts were initially cultivated at Moscow’s State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire as a student of the violin. She went on to obtain her Bachelors Degree in Russian Literature at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., where – at the age of 23 – she developed a programme to find musical talent in the North Causasus region of Russia, in association with Clive
Gillinson and Carnegie Hall.
For nearly two years, von Wiehler served as the personal administrative assistant to Valery Gergiev, as well as Director of Special Projects for the Mariinsky Foundation of
America. In these intensely enriching and fascinating roles, she worked closely on all matters from programming to touring, from to fundraising to producing festivals for the Mariinsky Theatre (including, for instance, in Vladivostok). During this time, and with Maestro Gergiev’s mentorship and encouragement, von Wiehler began to turn her attentions towards conducting, undertaking formal lessons with Leonid Korchmar whilst resident in St. Petersburg. Now based in the United Kingdom, she receives generous coaching from Jessica Cottis and Karen Kamensek, has participated in masterclasses with Paavo Järvi.
In 2020, von Wiehler completed her doctorate on the canon of Rodion Shchedrin at
the University of Oxford, where she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Not only is Oxford’s Rhodes Scholarship widely held to be the world’s most prestigious scholarship programme (renowned for producing many Heads of State, such as US President Bill Clinton) – but it is also a programme that places emphasis on attracting people who are committed to using their skills for the betterment of the world. Inspired by this environment, von Wiehler champions the belief that music has the potential to create a cultural and societal impact not stymied by global politics. Her fundamental aims as a conductor therefore hold sacred, at their core, the drive to use music as a means to effect change for greater societal good.
Although Russian music served as her entry point into conducting, this is by no means the exclusive focus of von Wiehler’s rapidly expanding symphonic and operatic repertoire. She is well-versed in music of the 19th and 20th centuries, and also enjoys a natural affinity for contemporary music, with a particular passion for contemporary opera – with Orchestra VOX she has staged the Oxford premieres of The Cave (Steve Reich) and The Corridor (Harrison Birtwistle), in addition to producing fully stage performances of canonic works such as La
Traviata and Eugene Onegin.
“Although her interests extend far beyond the Russian sphere, it is clearly some of the music von Wiehler knows and loves best. She came into her own in the Tchaikovsky, demonstrating a nuanced knowledge of the score and a great depth of musicality.”