He was born in Bern (Switzerland) in 1995. Since 2025, he has been studying at the Reina Sofía School of Music, in the “Zubin Mehta” Conducting Chair, with the support of Aline Foriel-Destezet, under the guidance of Professor Nicolás Pasquet, holder of the Chair, as well as Jordi Francés and Miguel Ángel Cañamero. He is a recipient of a Fundación Albéniz scholarship.
Holding master’s degrees in violin and conducting from the Basel and Lucerne schools, the Swiss conductor and violinist also draws inspiration from Johannes Schlaefli, Jaap van Zweden, Jorma Panula and Christoph-Mathias Mueller. Simon Schmied was assistant conductor to Sir Mark Elder at the 2024 Gstaad Menuhin Festival, in a production of Tristan und Isolde with Jonas Kaufmann and Camilla Nylund, and conducted the Gstaad Festival Orchestra as part of the Gstaad Conducting Academy. He is a participant in the 2025/26 Geneva Competition. In 2026, he will take part in a masterclass with Daniele Gatti and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
In the 2025/26 season, Simon Schmied performed with orchestras such as the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, Oviedo Filarmonía, the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre des Jeunes de Fribourg. His upcoming engagements include soloists such as Maximilian Hornung, Thomas Demenga and Benjamin Engeli. He has conducted the Basel Chamber Orchestra and Festival Strings Lucerne. Simon Schmied served as concertmaster of the Swiss Youth Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2020. Since 2020, he has been conducting the Student Orchestra of the University of Bern.