Raised in Berlin, where his father, Leon Spierer, was 1st concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan, he received his basic training on the piano and violin. Aside from his daily studies, he took private lessons with the German composer Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling. After studying violin with Fredell Lack at the University of Houston, he switched to the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg in 1984 and majored in conducting with Klauspeter Seibel. While still a student, Carlos Spierer participated in various master classes, including one in 1987 at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival with Leonard Bernstein, from whose conducting competition he emerged as a prize winner.

In 1990, his first engagement led him to the Kiel Opera House, where, as Kapellmeister, solo coach and assistant to the music director, he conducted premieres and performances of many popular operas for five years. He continued to expand his wide-ranging opera repertoire of well-known, rediscovered, or newly-discovered works of opera literature in the following years at the San Francisco Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, and the opera houses in Frankfurt and Tallinn. From 2003, he presided over the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in Mexico City for two years as chief conductor and artistic director. From 2003 to 2011, he was principal conductor of the Stadttheater Gießen.

In the symphonic realm, Carlos Spierer has also developed a vast repertoire in concert with many renowned orchestras, including the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires, the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, the HR Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Stockholm, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of the Polish Radio. In his Artistic and Musical directorships of orchestras, including the Gävle Symphony Orchestra (Sweden), the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería (Mexico City), and the Symphony Orchestra of the Stadttheater Giessen, he designed programs characterized by great stylistic diversity from a wide range of musical eras, thus always opening up to new listening experiences.

Internationally, he has been responsible for concerts and opera productions with the Orquesta Nacional de Costa Rica, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Mexico City, the Schleswig-Holstein Symphony Orchestra, at the Berlin Opera Academy, and in Vicenza, Italy.

Carlos Spierer is a renowned conducting teacher. Besides his private students, he has given master classes at the Texas Music Festival (Houston) and the Moores School of Music (University of Houston), and he teaches regularly at the UNAM in Mexico City.

Carlos Spierer’s recording of works by the Swedish composer Oscar Byström (Sterling)was named “CD of the Year 1998” by BBC Music Magazine. The CD of “Paddington Bear’s First Concert “and Poulenc’s “Babar the Elephant “(Polygram) was awarded the “Echo Prize 1999”.