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Eiji Oue began piano lessons at the age of four and at fifteen entered
the Toho School of Music where he began his conducting studies 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, and it was here
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 and in Moscow, Leningrad, Berlin, Rome and
other musical capitals. In 1990 Oue assisted Bernstein in the creation
of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, serving as resident conductor
for the Festival Orchestra.
Equally in demand in the US as in Europe, Mr. Oue is invited as guest conductor
of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic
and the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Saint Louis, Montreal and Toronto,
and the New Japan Philharmonic as well as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony
Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia Rome, Spanish National Orchestra,
Swedish Radio Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Deutsche Oper Berlin and WDR
Cologne.
Between 1991 - 1995 he served as Music Director of Pennsylvania’s Erie Philharmonic and in 1995 was appointed as Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra, a position he relinquished in 2002. Oue served as Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming. In addition to his directorship of this festival, his summer engagements have included appearances at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, Grand Park, Wolf Trap, Great Woods, Round Top and Midland music festivals.
Following a highly successful tour in 1997 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hanover, Eiji Oue was subsequently appointed its Chief Conductor, beginning from September 1998. In 2003, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan and he has just been named as the new Music Director of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, a position that will commence in September 2006.
Recently, Mr. Oue made his debut at the 2005 Bayreuth Festival conducting Tristan and Isolde and future conducting engagements include the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Gulbenkian Symphony, Sao Paolo Symphony, Malaysian Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. This coming season, he will record Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.1 and Spohr’s Violin Concerto No.8 with the Swedish Radio Symphony and Hilary Hahn for Deutsche Grammophon.
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.
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