The Israeli conductor Bar Avni has been the first female chief conductor in the 120-year history of the Bayer Philharmoniker since 2021. She works with various international orchestras and concert halls for guest engagements and CD recordings. She is also regularly involved in promoting young talent and in music education projects.
Bar Avni was recently awarded first prize at the “La Maestra” competition in Paris by the international jury chaired by Natalie Stutzmann. She also won four special prizes there: The “Orchestra Prize of the Paris Mozart Orchestra”, the “arte Prize”, the “Echo Award” and the “Prize of the French Concert Halls and Orchestras”. For the next two years, she is a scholarship holder of the La Maestra Academy.
In 2021, Bar Avni was the youngest prizewinner and scholarship holder of the International Kurt Masur Institute.
In 2024, she made her debut with the WDR Funkhaus Orchestra and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra as assistant to Barbara Hannigan, who has been a key advisor to Avni’s career.
For this season, concerts with the Hamburg State Youth Orchestra in the Elbphilharmonie and Israel are planned, as well as assistantships with Francoise Xavier Roth in Cologne and Klaus Mäkelä in Paris.
Next season, Bar Anni will be on tour with the Orchester National de Lille.
Since her conducting debut in 2016 at the Tyrolean Festival Erl, Avni has worked with a variety of orchestras and ensembles of different stylistic orientations, including: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Resonanz, Hamburger Camerata, Symphoniker Hamburg, Bergische Symphoniker, Bridges Chamber Orchestra, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia and Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra.
As a trained classical percussionist, Bar Avni initially performed in all of Israel’s leading orchestras. She then studied conducting with Yoav Talmi in Tel Aviv, after which she was assistant conductor of the Israel Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Yoav Talmi. She then continued her studies with Martin Sieghart in Graz and Ulrich Windfuhr in Hamburg. In the 2017/18 season, she was assistant to General Music Director Peter Kuhn at the Bergische Symphoniker.
