With passion, verve and illuminating musicianship, ELIZABETH SCHULTZE has been conducting orchestras and opera companies, advocating for music education, and electrifying audiences in the States and abroad for more than two and a half decades. Recipient of the 2013 Sorel Medallion in Conducting for her adventurous programming, Schulze is in her 23rd season as the Music Director and Conductor of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra and is the newly appointed Music Director and Conductor of the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra in Alaska. Schulze made her European debut, leading the Mainz Chamber Orchestra in the Atlantisches Festival in Kaiserslautern, Germany. She appeared in Paris as the assistant guest conductor for the Paris Opera and has also appeared in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Vienna with the National Symphony during its 1997 European tour. Her most recent international work includes conducting in Hong Kong, Jerusalem, and Taipei.

Schulze’s education includes training in Europe and in the States. She graduated cum laude from Bryn Mawr College and was an honors student at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She holds graduate degrees in orchestral and choral conducting from SUNY at Stony Brook.  She was the first doctoral fellow in orchestral conducting at Northwestern University and was selected as a conducting fellow at L’École d’Arts Americaines in France.  She was the recipient of the first Aspen Music School Conducting Award. At Aspen, she worked with Murry Sidlin, Lawrence Foster, and Sergiu Commissiona. As a Tanglewood fellow, she worked with Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, and Leonard Bernstein.