Oksana Lyniv was born in Ukraine into a family of musicians. As a child she studied the piano, flute, violin, and voice and conducted her first orchestra at the age of 16. Her international career was launched in 2004 with her 3rd Prize at the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition in Bamberg. From 2005 to 2009, she perfected her skills at the Dresden Academy of Music, and from 2013 to 2017, she was Kirill Petrenko’s assistant at the Bavarian State Opera. In 2015, she received the Munich Festival Prize and was named “Star of the Year” in the “Classical” category. Four years later, she won the well-reputed Trebbia International Prize, and in 2020 the Oper! Award for best conductor.

From 2017 to 2020, Oksana Lyniv was Principal Conductor of the Graz Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, helping reinvigorate one of Austria’s most important cultural centres. She is also the founding Artistic Director of the LvivMozArt Festival as well as the founding conductor and Artistic Director of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

First woman to be engaged at the Bayreuth Festival, she conducted there Der fliegende Hollander to open the 2021 festival. A few months later, Lyniv was appointed musical director of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. On taking up the position in January 2022, she became the first woman appointed to such a post in an Italian operatic institution.

In 2021-22, Oksana Lyniv conducted Tosca at the Royal Opera House – Covent Garden in London, as well as several new productions: Suor Angelica and the rarely performed Mese Mariano by Giordano at the Opéra de Wallonie in Liège, Turandot at the Rome Opera, and Rusalka at the Stuttgart State Opera.

In previous seasons, she has made her debut at the Paris Opera in an all-Tchaikovsky concert, the Frankfurt Opera (I Puritani), the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin (Médée by Cherubini), the Temple of Hatshepsutin Luxor (Aida) and in Barcelona (Der fliegende Holländer). She returned to the Bavarian State Opera for Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Bluebeard’s Castle and conducted works at the Theater an der Wien and Deutsche Oper in Berlin. She has also garnered success for her work on the concert podium with such ensembles as the Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Staatskapelle, Bruckner Orchestra of Linz, Badische Staatskapelle, SWR Orchestra, Nuremberg, Düsseldorf and Hamburg Symphony Orchestras, Barenboim-Said Academy, Luxembourg and Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan Academy.

Alongside her international career, Oksana Lyniv is a keen participant in Ukrainian musical life and returns there regularly for engagements. She is considered her country’s cultural ambassador and has received numerous distinctions.

Oksana Lyniv won the Helena Vaz da Silva European Award for Raising Public Awareness of Cultural Heritage 2022. This award was established by the Centro Nacional de Cultura in cooperation with Europa Nostra and the Clube Português de Imprensa and with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Portugal, the Gulbenkian Foundation and Tourism of Portugal.