Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and currently based in Germany, Anna Castro Grinstein made her debut with Scottish Opera during the 2024/25 season as assistant conductor for a production of Lehár’s The Merry Widow, taking over performances in Glasgow and Edinburgh. This co-production also marks her return to Opera Holland Park as associate conductor, having previously served as the 2024 Young Artist Conductor for their production of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. She opened the season conducting Gothic Opera’s production of Donizetti’s Maria de Rudenz at the Battersea Arts Centre in London, which earned three Offies Award nominations. In January 2025, she was invited to the prestigious Hart Institute for Women Conductors at The Dallas Opera (US), where she conducted a showcase concert at the Winspear Opera House.
In 2023 she was conducting fellow at the Aix-en-Provence festival’s academy, conducting the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra in concert. She was a Britten Pears Young Artist for the 23/24 season, working in a joint program with the Royal Opera House's Jette Parker Young Artist focusing on contemporary opera. In 2022 she was assistant conductor with the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina assisting Mariano Chiacchiarini; previous opera conducting highlights include the premiere of Kourti-Papamostou’s Bauernhof Oper with Community Oper Freiburg, Victor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis with Colectivo Sonoro Ensemble, and Arthur Honneger’s production of Les Aventures du Roi Pausole with the Musikhochschule Freiburg Opernschule.
Ph: Tamara Pawluk
About
In 2023 she was a selected candidate for the prestigious German Conducting Award organised by the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat) working with the Gürzenich Orchester Köln and the WDR Sinfonieorchester, and in 2024 she was one of the selected candidates for the Jorma Panula Conducting Competition. She was semifinalist at the Louis-Spohr-Stiftung conducting competition and was selected to participate at the Dirigierpodium Baden-Württemberg, She has done an apprenticeship (hospitanz) at the Staatsoper Berlin and in 2022 was sponsored by Barbara Hannigan's initiative "Momentum, our future now".
Ph: Kyle Flubacker
Ph: Ali Wright
She completed her masters in Orchestra Conducting
at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (Germany) with
professors Scott Sandmeier and Massimiliano Matesic.
As part of her masters she worked with the Südwestdeutsche
Kammerorchester Pforzheim as well as with the Dresden
Musikhochschule Orchestra and Nürenberg
Musikhochschule Orchestra as participant of the Campus
I Dirigieren competition. She previously completed a
Bachelor Degree (Licenciatura) in Orchestra Conducting at
the Universidad Catolica Argentina in her home town of
Buenos Aires, with professors Carlos Vieu and Lucia Zicos.
She attended several international conducting seminars
with tutors such as David Reiland, Luke Dollman,
Benjamin Zander, Mark Heron, Santiago Santero,
Fabian Panisello and Christof Löser.
From 2015 to 2020 she was the artistic and music director of Colectivo Sonoro Ensemble, with which she was the recipient of the “Fondo Metropolitano” and “Mecenazgo Buenos Aires” award programs. In 2016 she was selected to receive a full scholarship by the Goethe Institut to attend the prestigious Darmstadter Ferienkurs, where she was tutored by the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. Throughout the years she has also gained experience as a chorus singer, mainly as part of the GCC Chorus in Argentina and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus in Australia. She has performed in prestigious venues such as the Teatro Colon and Centro Cultural Kirchner (Argentina), Aachner Chorbiennale (Germany) and the Hammer Hall (Melbourne). In 2016 she was part of the argentinian concerts of the Rolling Stones “Olé” Tour, singing on stage as choir member in front of 50.000 people.
She is passionate about bringing classical music closer to new audiences as well as sharing her experiences as conductor. Since the 22/23 season she has started an ongoing collaboration with the prestigious Palau de Les Arts Valencia creating outreach content for their opera seasons. She is the creator of the channel "How I met the opera", which provides educational content about opera and classical music, which in 2021 was recognized and awarded support by German Music Council's Neustart Kultur program.
