Giedrė Šlekytė has shown promise early in her career as a conductor, one of the few women from the Baltic region in that field. With expertise in both orchestral music and opera, Šlekytė has held major guest-conducting positions in the West as well as in the Slavic and Baltic countries. Giedrė Šlekytė (GIE-dreh SCHLEK-i-te) was born in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius in 1989. She is the daughter of a mathematician and a dentist, but she sang in a children's choir, and the director recommended that she be enrolled in an arts education curriculum. After setting her sights on careers as a singer, dancer, and journalist, she settled on conducting and enrolled at the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art as a secondary school student. For her undergraduate studies, Šlekytė went west to the Graz University of Music and Performing Arts, studying with Johannes Prinz and Martin Sieghart. She went on for further studies at the University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig, Germany, working with Ulrich Windfuhr and Matthias Foremny. Šlekytė attended master classes with Riccardo Muti and Bernard Haitink, among others. Prizes, including a win at the International Malko Conductor Competition and a 2015 nomination for the Young Conductor Award at the Salzburg Festival, spread the young conductor's reputation. Šlekytė began her career as first Kapellmeisterin at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt in Germany from 2016 to 2018. There, she directed major operatic productions of works, including Donizetti's Maria Stuarda and Verdi's La traviata, as well as several Mozart operas. The 2018-2019 season marked a breakthrough for Šlekytė on several fronts. She made debut appearances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and conducted a symphonic concert at the Semperoper House in Dresden. She conducted a new opera by Franz Schreker, Die Gezeichneten, at the Zurich Opera House, and she made several appearances in opera and ballet with the prestigious Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Šlekytė made her recording debut in 2019, leading the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra on Going for the Impossible, a Deutsche Grammophon release featuring music by composer Raminta Šerkšnyté. She returned in 2021 on the Ondine label, leading music by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė with the Lithuanian National Symphony and Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. ~ James Manheim