Eiji Oue
Born in Japan, Eiji Oue began his musical studies with piano lessons at the age of 4. Then, at 15, Oue entered the Toho Gakuen 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.

Eiji Oue is Conductor Laureate of the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, having served as Music Director from 2003-2011, and Conductor Laureate of the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Hannover, following eleven years as their Music Director (1998-2009). He has also held the positions of Music Director of Pennsylvania’s Erie Philharmonic Orchestra (1991-1995), Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra (1995-2002), and Music Director of the Orquesta Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (Barcelona Symphony Orchestra) (2006-2010). 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, the symphony orchestra of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the 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 tours of Japan and South America with the NDR Philharmonic, his debuts at the Orquesta Sinfonia Brasileira, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and the Shanghai and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras, performances with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Tonkuenstler Orchestra of Vienna, the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, and a production of Die Fledermaus at Tokyo’s Nikikai Opera. In the 2013/14 season and beyond, he undertakes a tour of major European cities with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and returns to the Bern Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras.

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.