CBSO names Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as its first female music director

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has named the young Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as its next music director. She will take up the post in September on an initial three-year contract, and becomes the first woman to hold the role in the orchestra's history.

Her appointment follows a remarkably short acquaintance with the orchestra. She first guest-conducted the CBSO only in July 2015, and the partnership clearly made a strong impression on both sides.

Following in famous footsteps

She succeeds the Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons, whose time as music director came to an end after the 2014-15 season. Nelsons had himself been an unusual choice: when the orchestra named him in October 2007, he had never conducted the CBSO in a public concert, only in a private concert and a recording session.

The post has been held by some of the most celebrated names in music. Simon Rattle became the orchestra's principal conductor in 1980, and under him the CBSO grew into one of the leading ensembles in Europe, known in particular for its Mahler and Sibelius. He was named music director in 1990, and it was during his time that the orchestra moved from Birmingham Town Hall into its current home, Symphony Hall, in 1991.

After Rattle came the Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo, who became principal conductor in 1998 and music director in 1999. He championed contemporary music and the work of the composer John Foulds before stepping down in 2008.

A civic orchestra from the start

The CBSO has always had a special place in the life of the city. It was founded in 1920, after campaigners including Neville Chamberlain, then Lord Mayor, and the composer Granville Bantock argued that Birmingham should have a permanent, publicly funded orchestra. The city council agreed to support it with an annual grant, the first time public money had been used to fund an orchestra anywhere in Britain.

The orchestra gave its first concert on 5 September 1920 at the Theatre Royal on New Street. Two months later, Edward Elgar conducted a programme of his own works at the Town Hall to open its first series of symphony concerts.

From early on, the orchestra also made a point of championing new music and of playing for the city's children, with concerts for schoolchildren in the Town Hall beginning in 1921.

A new chapter

Today the CBSO is based at Symphony Hall, with its administrative and rehearsal base at the nearby CBSO Centre, where it also puts on chamber concerts.

The appointment of a young conductor so early in her career continues the orchestra's tradition of spotting talent before the rest of the world does, as it famously did with Rattle. Audiences in Birmingham will have the chance to see what the new partnership can do when her first season as music director begins in the autumn.