SONOS Music Director Erik E. Ochsner, known for his clear, powerful conducting presence and attention to detail, is one of today’s promising, and gifted conductors.  Invited by the composer Tan Dun himself, Erik was one of only three conductors, invited to conduct members of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in a November 2007 composer-focus festival.  As Assistant Conductor for Academy Award winning composer-conductor Tan Dun, projects have taken Erik to Asia, Australia, Europe, New Zealand and across the United States preparing singers, orchestras and choruses in advance of Tan Dun’s arrival.  Erik was Assistant Conductor and Chorus Master for the Shanghai workshop of The First Emperor, a Metropolitan Opera World Premiere Commission.  Ochsner was recently rehearsal conductor for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Cultural Festival’s performances of Tea; he was responsible for preparing the orchestra, soloists, chorus and even training Peking Opera dancers how to follow a western conductor.  Two projects which Erik was associated with are currently available on DVD: the opera Tea: A Mirror of Soul, and The Map, which featured Yo-Yo Ma in the world premiere with the Boston Symphony.

Ochsner has been associated with twenty-three cities across the globe of Academy Award winning composer Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings Symphony tour. He conducted the New Mexico Symphony on its journey to middle Earth for the evening length multimedia piece.  More recently, he has been travelling as assistant conductor to Winnipeg, Wolf Trap and in Krakow, Poland as assistant conductor for The Fellowship of the Ring movie projection with live symphony orchestra and chorus.

Ochsner is Music Director and Founder of SONOS Chamber Orchestra in New York City. SONOS seeks to discover adventurous works that offer artistic strength and potential beyond common acceptance and to expose audiences to the value of these compositions.  The American Scandinavian Society honored Erik and SONOS by awarding them the 2003 Cultural Advocacy Award.  Ochsner has conducted six U.S. premieres, including Karl Jenkins’ Requiem and two world premieres.  In October 2009, Ochsner and SONOS will perform the U.S premiere of Fredrik Sixten’s Requiem. 
In May 2007, Ochsner led the Chinese premiere of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire at the Beijing Festival of Contemporary Music, and immediately received an invitation to return.  The Leipziger Volkszeitung hailed his Gershwin concert as being “exact and rhythmic,” and his Mozart as being “straightforward and dramatic.”

Formerly the Assistant Conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, under Grammy Award winning conductor Maestro Robert Spano, Ochsner hosted and conducted Educational concerts of Cosi fan tutte for approximately 8,000 Brooklyn schoolchildren. Under his teacher and mentor Robert Spano, Ochsner was involved with numerous indoor and outdoor concerts, as well as opera productions including Thomas Ades' Powder Her Face; John Adams’ Nixon in China and Death of Klinghoffer; and Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, directed by Jonathan Miller.

Future projects include the 2009 Beijing Modern Music Festival;  Tan Dun’s opera Tea in Beijing, Tan Dun’s Water and Paper Concerti with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, as well as the world premiere of a SONOS-commissioned Shakuhachi concerto, and the U.S. Premiere of Swedish composer Fredrik Sixten’s Requiem.

His teachers have included Marin Alsop, Christian Arming, Efrain Guigui, Christopher Hogwood, Erich Kunzel, Louis Lane, Gustav Meier, Helmut Rilling, Stefan Sanderling, Robert Spano, and Pascal Verrot.  A graduate of Dartmouth College, Erik was born in Würzburg, Germany, to a Finnish mother and American Swiss-German father and lives in New York City.  Erik is a dual Finnish (European Union) and American citizen.  He speaks French, German, Italian, has working knowledge of Finnish. Mr. Ochsner serves on the Board of Directors of the Sibelius Society USA; plays the flute, piccolo, piano, is a tenor and collects requiem recordings.

"Erik Ochsner's rehearsal for The Lord of the Rings Symphony was most efficient, demanding, helpful and fun for all our singers. He is a remarkable leader under pressure!"

Amy Kaiser, Director, Saint Louis Symphony Chorus

 

Updated September 6, 2008