Anja Bihlmaier, Her Debut in Hong Kong at HK Phil’s Horns Concerts

German conductor Anja Bihlmaier will make her debut in Hong Kong with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) and conduct the German Hornsound and HK Phil’s principal and co-principal horn players on 2 and 3 June at Hong Kong Cultural Centre.

Ahead of the concerts, she shared with us her journey from a small town in Germany to becoming the first female conductor to be named in several European orchestras, and explained with great enthusiasm and passion her role as a conductor.

Anja Bihlmaier, by Nikolaj Lund

Born in 1978 in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, Anja Bihlmaier comes from a family where “music was always there but as a hobby.” Her passion for music and her desire to pursue this path in conducting has truly been nurtured thanks to her high school music teacher and passionate conductor who noticed how quickly she had learned piano and violin.

“My teacher saw that I was talented and very enthusiastic, also that I could play piano and violin in the orchestra of the school. I somehow felt in love with how he worked with us and how he expressed his passion about the music he was conducting,” she recalls.

Her music teacher pushed her to enrol in a mentoring conducting programme at the age of seventeen and then offered her to conduct a small opera with ninety students. This turning point made her realise that she truly wanted to become a conductor. Until then, she didn’t even know that conductor could be a job!

“When I was standing there, I felt that this was really what I wanted to do, that it was why I was born for. I knew the music, I loved bringing people together, I loved sharing the talents of the school musicians as a group and the colours of the instruments to the audience, and I still have that feeling when going on stage now,” shares Bihlmaier.

Anja Bihlamier, by Nikolaj Lund

Since then, Anja Bihlmaier has amassed fifteen years of experience holding positions at Staatsoper Hannover, Theater Chemnitz and Staatstheater Kassel in Germany, with productions including Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky, Carmen by Bizet, Werther by Massenet, Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart and Rusalka by Dvořák.

In 2017, she conducted the St Margarethen Opera Festival production of Rigoletto, being the first female conductor in the Austrian festival’s history. Since 2021, she has been the chief conductor of the Residentie Orkest in the Netherlands and the first guest conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in Finland. She has been the first female conductor to be named in these two orchestras.

Anja Bihlmaier for Oslo Philharmonic, by John-Halvdan Halvorsen

When asked to describe the role of a conductor, which can be vague for neophytes, Anja Bihlmaier says that she sees it as “an interpreter of the music, of masterpieces created by geniuses.” And this requires a lot of preparation before going on stage with the orchestra.

“I’m here sitting at home reading the music, thinking: What is the music about? What is the architecture? What are the secrets? What can I bring out? How can the musicians and I make this music come alive to the audience?”, she confides.

On her debut as guest-conductor for HK Phil with an orchestra she had never leaded, and only knows by reputation and through recordings, she says that she comes to the city with a “vision about the music pieces” and the instant communication and connection she will create with the orchestra during the three days of rehearsals before the performances, implying a high level of professionalism, sensitivity and listening.

“The most important thing about a conductor is that you have to feel the artists and the sound of an orchestra and put that together with the vision you had about the pieces. It’s a collaboration where the conductor has to be a good communicator to understand the talents of the musicians to align with your vision to make the music come through. Most of the time, it’s a non-verbal communication, I show with my body how I react, I talk with my hands, with my look. Another important part is to listen: listen to the music and the reactions of the musicians,’ she explains with passion.

Anja Bihlamier, by Olaf Malzahn

Bihlmaier’s vision of conducting is modern. She considers it as a two-way communication – giving to the musicians, and listening and receiving from them – to make them feel part of one team, with a conductor in charge of making connection between the musicians and the instruments.

She sees the orchestra as a mini society with diverse and colourful people who have to be disciplined and to listen to each other, so they can connect immediately and offer, at a unique given moment, a performance that the audience can feel.

Ultimately, she shares that her secret as a conductor is to be authentic, honest to herself and self-secure, and to express her soul to the orchestra, in order to build trust as a leader.

About the fact that she is a woman in a profession that has been historically male-dominated, she feels that, while there has been more female conductors in the past few years, it is still “tricky for a woman conductor who is always on the road, to manage a family for example.” She hopes that with more role models, it will create more vocations among aspiring young women.

She also feels that that the leadership has changed and that conducting is less a dominant position than it used to be in the past (“like a Messiah waving the hands in front of the orchestra”) and more of a collaborative process where the conductor is obviously a leader, especially during rehearsals, but is also letting some freedom to the musicians to express their passion during the concerts.

German Hornsound, by Marian Lenhard

For her two upcoming concerts with HK Phil, she will conduct the German Hornsound and HK Phil’s principal and co-principal horn players and she has chosen compositions for horns by Wagner, Schumann and Tüür.

For Schumann, the horn was the most romantic of all instruments, whether echoing poetically in the forest, or sounding a thrilling call to battle. Anja Bihlmaier echoes this by saying that horns are a sign of strength, energy, heroism and breathing, like a layer of sound colours, but also of loneliness, tragedy and melancholy.

Finally, Anja Bihlmaier mentions how enthusiastic she is, not only to meet HK Phil and Hong Kong audience, but also to discover the city’s lively energy and variety. And food!

More details about the concerts here. Tickets can be booked here.