About

Lucia is an upcoming Slovak-British conductor. She has worked with orchestras such as the City of London Sinfonia, Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera and Opéra de Baugé Orchestra, winning the Audience Prize in the 2024 Conducting Competition in Baugé-en-Anjou. A 2025 Carlos Miguel Prieto Conducting Fellow, she has studied with conductors such as Marin Alsop and Vasily Petrenko, and this season she works as the Assistant Conductor at Opera Holland Park, Blackheath Halls Opera and Gothic Opera. She is currently the Musical Director of the Shoreham Oratorio Choir and of the CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) London Ensemble, as well as Serena Fenwick Young Artist at British Youth Opera.

Lucia has been recognised as a talented and approachable conductor with clear musical vision. She has been working with a variety of ensembles, from youth orchestras and amateur groups to professional orchestras. Her particular passion lies in 20th- and 21st-century opera, where she has enjoyed projects such as leading a filmed international and semi-professional production of Cui’s Feast in Time of Plague with the Oxford Opera Society in May 2021, and producing and directing a production of the children’s opera Brundibár at The Purcell School for Young Musicians in April 2022. In the 2022-2023 season, she was working with the David Seligman Opera Studio, where she both assisted and led her own production of Handel’s Choice of Hercules. Recently, she has been working as assistant conductor with companies such as Gothic Opera, Blackheath Halls Opera and Opera Holland Park.

Apart from that, Lucia is passionate about contemporary music, having commissioned compositions for projects such as the Phoenix Benefit Concert (details on the ‘Phoenix’ page on this website) and performed in the New Pathways to Improvisation conference at Middlesex University. She is currently conducting CoMA London Ensemble as their Musical Director, working with their Composers in Residence programme and on termly projects, pushing boundaries of what it means to perform and listen to music. Her interest in contemporary music started with conducting the premiere of Israel Lai’s Bou6 as the Musical Director of the Oxford Contemporary Opera Festival.

Lucia started her musical journey as a pianist and organist in Slovakia, winning the National Competition of Young Organists in Námestovo twice (2013 and 2015) and the title ‘Laureate’ at the National Organ Display ‘Gorazd’s Organ Days’ in Zvolen in 2014. She then started her conducting career as Organ Scholar at Jesus College, Oxford, where she conducted the Jesus College Chapel Choir with which she toured internationally. During her time at Oxford University, she studied choral conducting under Paul Spicer and Sarah Tenant-Flowers and orchestral conducting under John Traill and Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey. In January 2019, Lucia founded her own Turl Street Arts Festival Orchestra (TSAF Orchestra), which focused on unconventional repertoire. The orchestra performed several acclaimed performances, including a ‘Tango’ concert with an internationally renowned accordion soloist from Slovakia, Tomáš Valiček, and an Oxford premiere of Florence Price’s Third Symphony.

Lucia has also been gaining further conducting experience at courses and masterclasses with conductors such as Alice Farnham, Marios Papadopoulos and Peter Stark. In August 2019 and again in January 2021 Lucia was chosen as one of twelve women to participate in the Sorrell Women Conductors Programme with Sian Edwards at the Royal Academy of Music. In July 2021 she was an active participant at the Jette Parker Young Artists’ Women Conductors Course at the Royal Opera House where she conducted Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with the City of London Sinfonia and Opera Holland Park Young Artists. The following year she studied with Denise Ham at the London Conducting Academy and later finished her Artist Diploma at OAcademy Music Conservatory.

Lucia welcomes any enquiries regarding conducting engagements. Feel free to contact her on conductor@luciasvecova.org.