New York - Karen Kamenšek, a Conductor of Slovenian descent who served as artistic director of the Maribor opera house and the chief conductor of its orchestra years ago, has won the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for her version of Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten, Delo reports, quoting foreign media. The Grammies were conferred on Sunday.

Kamenšek was born in Chicago but her parents come from Kamnica near Maribor. She graduated in conducting and piano from the University of Indiana.

From 2000 to 2002 she was the chief conductor at the Vienna Volksoper, and from 2003 to 2006 the music director of the Freiburg theatre, becoming the first female conductor in its history.

In 2007, she took over as the head of the Maribor Opera and Ballet, where she also served as artistic director of the symphonic orchestra for a year.

Between 2008 and 2011, she worked at the Hamburg State Opera and then became the chief conductor at the Hannover State Opera, where she was also the first female conductor until 2016.

Kamenšek debuted with the opera on the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenatenby by Glass with whom she often collaborates, at the English National Opera in March 2016. She performed it at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2019 and was the second conductor picked for the streaming of the opera as part of the series Metropolitan Opera Live in HD. The recording won the Grammy.

The 52-year-old conductor will make her debut at the Arizona opera house with a new production of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte this month, and she is also working on the music for the film Amadeus by Miloš Forman, web portal newsbeezer reported.