Maria Seletskaja
(conductor)
Maria Seletskaja is the Music Director of the English National Ballet Company.
Maria graduated from Tallinn Ballet School in 2002 and continued her studies at St. Petersburg Vaganova Ballet Academy. In 2003 to 2006, she studied choreography at Tallinn University. She has been a soloist with the Estonian National Ballet, Staatsballett Berlin, Zurich Ballet and the Royal Ballet of Flanders and guested in many theatres around the world. While pursuing her career in dance, Maria studied both piano and violin. She studied music theory, harmony, and orchestration at Berklee College of Music in Boston and conducted under James Tuggle’s tutelage. During her final years as a dancer, she was also an assistant conductor at Stuttgart Ballet where she made her conducting debut in April 2017. Since 2018, Maria has dedicated herself fully to conducting. In 2021, she began her master’s studies in orchestral conducting with Maestro Arvo Volmer at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and graduated in 2022.
In 2022, Maria made her conducting debut with Ballett am Rhein and Estonian National Ballet. She assisted David Briskin at the Royal Danish Ballet, where she conducted “Romeo and Juliet” and returned to Stuttgart Ballet to conduct a revival of Marcia Haydée’s “The Sleeping Beauty”. She also made her concert debut with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, conducting a New Year’s concert which was broadcast on national television to an audience of over 100,000.
In 2023, Maria successfully debuted with the San Francisco Ballet, conducting their production of “Romeo and Juliet”, and concluded her residency with the National Ballet of Canada by conducting their production of “Cinderella”. Highlights of the season 2023/24 included debuts with Staatsballett Berlin, Paris Opera Ballet, Finnish National Ballet and English National Ballet. 2024/25 sees engagements with Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater, Opera Bordeaux, Staatsballett Hamburg, Norwegian National Ballet.
Photo: Maria-Helena Buckley