Mats Thiersch wins Geneva conducting competition

The German conductor takes first prize ahead of South Africa’s Jacobus de Jager and Switzerland’s Gabriel Pernet, concluding an edition that brought conducting and composition together.

German conductor Mats Thiersch has won first prize at the 2026 Concours de Genève conducting competition, following the final at Victoria Hall on November 13. He receives CHF 20,000.

Second prize, worth CHF 12,000, went to Jacobus de Jager, while Gabriel Pernet received third prize and CHF 8,000. The finalists performed with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

A final spanning Strauss, Stravinsky and Prokofiev

Thiersch conducted Richard Strauss’s Don Juan in the concluding round. Pernet led Stravinsky’s The Firebird, in its 1919 suite, while de Jager conducted selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

The result closes a competition held across 2025 and 2026, marking the return of conducting to Geneva for the first time since 1994, when Alan Gilbert won the category.

A conductor with a background in composition

Born in 2003, Thiersch has served since September 2026 as assistant conductor to Kirill Petrenko with the Berliner Philharmoniker and as a conducting fellow at its Karajan-Akademie.

He began studying composition with Miroslav Srnka in Cologne in 2021 and has studied conducting with Alain Altinoglu at the Paris Conservatoire since 2023. His own music has been performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik. His recent training has also included work with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and a conducting seminar at Tanglewood.

Conducting meets new music

The finalists had already appeared with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande on November 11 in a joint round with the composition competition. Each conducted one of the three finalist orchestral works.

Thiersch led Hanurij Lee’s Stuff #1, which won the composition first prize. De Jager conducted Sing-Yat Chen’s Shattered sky / remaining land, awarded third prize, while Pernet led Brazilian-Italian composer Rafael Marino Arcaro’s invention in language of child, op. 22, which took second.

The format placed contemporary orchestral writing alongside the established symphonic repertoire, requiring the young conductors to work with both newly composed scores and familiar concert works.