Anna Handler Joins LA Phil as Conductor in Residence

In Tuesday’s (4/7) Los Angeles Times, Mark Swed writes, “With Gustavo Dudamel’s final season as music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic reaching its homestretch, the orchestra has announced the appointment of its latest not music director. Anna Handler, a former Dudamel fellow and rapidly rising young conductor, will be given the new title of conductor-in-residence for the next three seasons. She will spend three weeks each season conducting the orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, as well as working with students at the Beckmen YOLA Center … She serves as assistant conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra … ‘The sky is the limit,’ Handler exclaims with the boundless enthusiasm that is said to have won over the orchestra and the administration…. Born in France, [Handler] grew up in Germany and is Colombian German…. Handler’s appointment came, she says, as a surprise. It was after her conducting the L.A. Phil at Disney last month that the orchestra suddenly sprang the idea of a residency beginning… with the 2026-27 season … Handler says she jumped at the chance to return to L.A. even though she would be beginning her first season of her first music director job at the Ulster Orchestra in Ireland.”