Mussorgsky: 'The Hut of Baby-Yaga' from 'Pictures at an Exhibition'

More info..

Orchestra: Minnesota Orchestra
Label: Reference Recordings
Cat. No.: RR-79CD

“The intensity prevailed from beginning to end, throughout this milestone account [of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder] conducted by Eiji Oue. His musicians were absolutely devoted, producing the highest standard of execution that we can recall from the Orquesta Simfonica de Barcelona. He conducted this extremely complex music from memory and interpreted it with great power.”

El Mundo Cataluña

Born in Japan, Eiji Oue began his musical life as a pianist before moving from stage to podium, and since 2003, he has held the position of Principal Conductor of the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan.

Oue began his musical studies with piano lessons at the age of 4. Then, at 15, Oue entered the Taho School of Music as a performance major, beginning his conducting studies that same year with Hideo Saito, the teacher of Seiji Ozawa. In 1978 he was invited by Ozawa to spend the summer studying at the Tanglewood Music Centre, where he met Leonard Bernstein, who became his mentor and colleague, sharing the podium during three international tours with concerts in La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Opera de Paris-Bastille and in Moscow, St Petersburg, Berlin, Rome and other musical capitals. In 1990 he assisted Bernstein in the creation of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, serving as resident conductor for the Festival Orchestra.

Between 1991 and 1995, Eiji Oue was Music Director of Pennsylvania’s Erie Philharmonic Orchestra and from 1995 to 2002 he served as Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra. From 1998 to 2009 he was Music Director of the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Hannover (where he is now Conductor Laureate), and from 2006 to 2010 he was Music Director of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (Barcelona Symphony Orchestra).

Alongside these posts, he served as Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming from 1997 to 2003, and was the driving force behind founding one of the Festival’s most loved events, the annual outdoor Fourth of July community concert. In addition to his directorship of this festival, his summer engagements in the US have included appearances at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, Grand Park, Wolf Trap, Round Top and Midland music festivals.

Eiji Oue has guest conducted throughout the United States, working with the most prestigious orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Saint Louis, Montreal and Toronto. In Europe he has conducted the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Gulbenkian Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, National Orchestra of Spain, Swedish Radio Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, and the orchestras of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and WDR Cologne. In 2005 he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival conducting Tristan und Isolde.

Highlights of recent seasons have included acclaimed performances of Gurrelieder, La Bohème and Mahler’s Second, Third and Ninth Symphonies with the Barcelona Symphony, tours of Japan and South America with the NDR Philharmonic, and performances with the Malaysian Philharmonic, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. In the 2010/11 season and beyond, he makes his debut at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Warsaw, Tokyo and Qatar Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Shanghai and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras, and returns to the Sao Paulo Symphony, the Bern Symphony, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Tonkuenstler Orchestra of Vienna.

Eiji Oue has recorded extensively with the Minnesota Orchestra in repertoire including Bernstein, Stravinsky, Mahler, Strauss, Copland and Rachmaninov. With the NDR Hannover he has recorded the music of Antheil, Martinu, Schnittke, and Strauss’s orchestral songs with soprano Michaela Kaune, and for DG he recorded the violin concertos of Paganini and Spohr with Hilary Hahn. He has a particular passion for working with young musicians and since 2000 has been Professor of Conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. Among his numerous honours and awards are the 1980 Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood and both first prize and the Hans Haring Gold Medal at the 1981 Salzburg Mozarteum conducting competition. In November 2005 he received the Praetorius Music Prize from the state of Lower Saxony.

Season 2010/2011

Date Last Edited: 30th July 2010