About

Clara Wagsteiner (b Bauer)

“She consistently impressed all of us with her decisive temperament, her profound musicality, her intelligence, imagination and curiosity. She knows exactly what she wants and her character brings a most enjoyable atmosphere to her work. Her abilities to lead and inspire a team are exactly what a conductor in the 21st century needs.” (Mark Stringer)

At just 13, Clara Wagsteiner got in touch with Fabio Luisi who gave her the opportunity to conduct the Wiener Symphoniker. After this key experience, she was sure about her future as a conductor.

Clara Wagsteiner completed her studies in Orchestral Conducting with Mark Stringer at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in 2020, graduating with honors. She was selected for the Karajan Competition of the academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Besides Stringer, her main teachers were Karl Kamper (Choir Conducting, Mozarteum Salzburg), Yuji Yuasa (Orchestral Conducting Technique), Thomas Lang, Ingrun Fussenegger, Johannes Hiemetsberger and Alois Glassner (Choir Conducting, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna), Martin Lichtfuss and Gesine Schröder (Composition and Music Theory), Barbara Moser (Piano), Vladimir Kiradjiev and Konrad Leitner (Opera Conducting). She has benefitted from conducting masterclasses with Douglas Bostock, Mark Heron, Clark Rundell, Johannes Schlaefli, Marin Alsop and Barneby Smith.

In 2022, she was selected to take part in the Akademie Musiktheater heute of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung and was granted a Startstipendium (scholarship) for Music and Performing Arts by the Federal Ministry of Arts and Culture, Civil Service and Sport for 2022/23. In 2021, she put a long-held dream into action: to found a virtuoso chamber orchestra which shares new concert settings and programs with a focus on 20th and 21st century music with its audience. In 2019, she won the position of conducting fellow and assistant conductor of the Bergische Symphoniker in Wuppertal, Germany.

Clara Wagsteiner is used to conducting a wide repertoire ranging from operas to symphonic music, from renaissance to contemporary. In addition, she regularly performs with choirs and vocal groups and has a special interest in choir-orchestra-repertoire. Recent highlights include her debuts with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, the Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, and the London Symphony Orchestra (Donatella Flick Conducting Competition 2023). In July 2023, she was a semi-finalist in the International Conducting Competition Lliria, City of Music in Spain.

Upcoming projects include concerts with the Alma Mahler Philharmonie at the Odeon Theater in Vienna as well as staged productions at the Volkstheater Wien (humanistää) and with the Ensemble Modern (Akademie Musiktheater heute) in Frankfurt am Main.

In addition to her conducting career, she is regularly engaged as composer, chamber musician, and musicologist. She holds a Master’s Degree in Musicology, completed at the University Vienna. Her PhD research at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna focuses on Gustav Mahler’s performance indications. Clara Wagsteiner completed her Magister in music theory at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, with honors.

Clara Wagsteiner has a strong passion for contemporary pieces and music by composers who are hardly present in music historiography simply because of their gender or religion, thinking of Lili Boulanger, Hugo Kauder and Mélanie Bonis to name but a few of them. There is so much fantastic music to be discovered.

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