German-born conductor Erina Yashima is the Assistant Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Yashima has been in this role since September 2019, where she assists Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as well as other guest conductors, and leads The Philadelphia Orchestra in a variety of different concert programs.

As a rising star in the industry, Yashima has performed all over the world with acclaimed ensembles and orchestras. Recent highlights include her debut at the Arena di Verona and her return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Rostov State Philharmonic, and at the Colorado Music Festival. This 2021-22 season and beyond will see Yashima’s debuts with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, Albany Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Niederrheinische Sinfoniker, among others. On the opera platform, Yashima will conduct a new production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte in her debut with the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, and lead a production of Rusalka at the Theater Krefeld und Mönchengladbach.

Since 2015, Yashima has been studying with Riccardo Muti. As winner of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprenticeship, Yashima assisted Maestro Muti and worked closely with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. During this period, Yashima collaborated with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and assisted conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Christoph Eschenbach, and Edward Gardner.

In opera, Yashima made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2017 with a production of Der Schauspieldirektor for children. She conducted Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in Novara and Ravenna in February 2019, and Rossini’s La Cenerentola, both in 2017 in Lucca and again in 2018 in Piacenza with the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra. At the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, Yashima served as répétiteur with conducting duties, leading performances of My Fair Lady .

As one of the three finalists of the prestigious Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award, Yashima performed with the Camerata Salzburg at the Salzburg Festival 2018. In November of the same year she was as assistant conductor to Zubin Mehta and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. Other orchestras that Yashima has performed with include the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Transylvania State Philharmonic of Cluj-Napoca, Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt (Oder), and Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo.

In 2015, Yashima was an active participant of the Italian Opera Academy in Ravenna, working with Riccardo Muti on Verdi’s Falstaff, as well as in Bernard Haitink’s masterclass at the Lucerne Festival. Yashima was a finalist at the INTERAKTION workshop, leading musicians from Berlin Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin and Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, amongst others.

As a pre-college piano student of Bernd Goetzke, Yashima began her musical studies at the Institute for the Early Advancement of the Musically Highly Gifted (IFF) in her hometown of Hannover and had her first conducting lessons at the age of 14. After studying conducting in Freiburg with Scott Sandmeier, and in Vienna with Mark Stringer, she completed her studies at the Hanns Eisler School of Music, Berlin under the guidance of Christian Ehwald and Hans-Dieter Baum.