Hailed as “one of Europe’s greatest promises” (Helsingin Sanomat), Tabita Berglund is one of today’s most exciting, talented young conductors who is fast gaining a reputation for her alert, charismatic and inspiring style which elicits “exceptional music-making” (The Arts Desk). In October 2024 she becomes the new Principal Guest Conductor of Detroit Symphony Orchestra, with whom she made her US debut in 2023. She concluded her three-year tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra at the end of the 2023/24 season.
Symphonic highlights of 2023/24 included Berglund’s debuts with Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berner Symphonieorchester, Orchestre National de Lyon, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, Dresdner Philharmonie, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Musikkollegium Winterthur, and Grafenegg Festival where she joined forces with Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich for the second time and ahead of further performances which took place later in the season. Working together again with Philharmonia Orchestra, Berglund makes her Garsington Opera debut this summer conducting a revival production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, while forthcoming appearances in 2024/25 include returns to Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, Orchestre de Lyon, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, as well as debuts with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra (Salzburg Easter Festival), Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Minnesota Orchestra and Houston Symphony, among others. Berglund also makes her Asian debut with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in 2024/25.
Berglund regularly collaborates with internationally-renowned soloists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Leila Josefowicz, Truls Mørk, Pekka Kuusisto, Cédric Tiberghien, Alexander Malofeev, Camilla Tilling and the Jussen Brothers, to name a few. She continues to champion the music of Nordic compatriots such as Sibelius, Stenhammar, Tveitt, Nordheim and Thorvaldsdottir, as part of a wide-ranging repertoire from Mozart and Beethoven through to Prokofiev, Boulanger, Mahler, Lutosławski and Britten, among many others.
Berglund graduated in 2019 from the Orchestral Conducting Masters course at the Norwegian Academy of Music, where she studied under Professor Ole Kristian Ruud. She originally trained as a cellist and studied to Master’s degree level under Truls Mørk, performing regularly with the Oslo and Bergen philharmonic orchestras as well as the Trondheim Soloists before conducting became her main focus in 2015. She was the 2018–20 star of the Talent Norway programme and is a past recipient of the Gstaad Conducting Academy’s Neeme Järvi Prize. Berglund’s debut CD, on which she conducts the Oslo Philharmonic with violinist Sonoko Miriam Welde, was released in 2021 (LAWO) and subsequently nominated for a Norwegian Grammy (Spellemann) in the 2022 Classical Music category.