Critics have hailed Benjamin Shwartz for the intensity of his music making and the clear vision of his interpretations. These qualities, applied to a strikingly broad repertoire, flow naturally from the conductor’s profound musicianship and insatiable curiosity. Shwartz is Chief Conductor of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie He served as Music Director of the Orkiestra Symfoniczna NFM Wrocław from 2013 to 2016 and was appointed as Principal Guest Conductor for the 2019-2020 season at Duisburg Philharmonic. As a guest conductor he has been invited to work with orchestras such as the Royal Stockholm, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gulbenkian, BBC Scotland, Tokyo, Iceland and Aarhus Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Orchestre National de Lille. In the field of opera, Shwartz's titles include Bernstein’s Candide with Oper Köln, Die Fledermaus and La bohème at the Royal Swedish Opera, Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict at the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar, Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, Bellini’s La sonnambula and Gounod’s Faust at the Curtis Institute. As part of a developing collaboration with the ballet company of Opéra National de Paris, Shwartz has conducted, amongst others, Pina Bausch’s choreography of The Rite of Spring, Balanchine’s Jewels and performances of Giselle at Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan and Preljocaj’s Le Parc.