Music lovers now have a new name to master: it is Mirga Gražintė-Tyla (pictured left), the 26 year-old from Lithuania who won the 2012 Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award at Salzburg at the weekend.  With 91 applicants, the competition at the end closed in on two candidates: Gražinytė-Tyla and the 20 year-old Jamie Phillips, from Britain. “It was a very close call,” said the chairman of the Festival’s international jury, the conductor Ingo Metzmacher. “In the end, greater determination and clarity was the crucial factor.”  

Awarded every year to a conductor under 35, the award carries a cash prize of 15000 Euros, and gives the winner the chance to conduct the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra at a Festival concert in August. Phillips, currently studying conducting at Manchester University, didn’t leave entirely empty handed. The Festival’s Artistic Director spontaneously gave him the opportunity to conduct the Camerata Salzburg at the Salzburg Festival in 2013

.