| Peter Oundjian
Peter Oundjian was named Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2006. Working in collaboration with Music Director Designate Leonard Slatkin, Oundjian serves as the DSO’s Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor through the 2007-08 season, including leading the acclaimed 8 Days in June festival. Beginning in 2008-09, he will return regularly in the position of Principal Guest Conductor.
Oundjian’s strong bond with the musicians and community of Toronto continues through his third season as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. His concerts draw capacity audiences as he explores the breadth and depth of orchestral repertoire, and features world-renowned soloists and guest conductors. At the beginning of his tenure, Oundjian created the now-annual Mozart Festival and the New Creations Festival. The enormous success of the three-week Beethoven/Mahler Festival in 2006, featuring all Beethoven symphonies and Mahler Songs, has heralded a season of stunning and impassioned performances in Toronto.
In addition to his post in Toronto, Oundjian is in his 10th year of artistic leadership at the Caramoor Festival in New York. From 1998-2003, he was the Music Director of the Nieuw Sinfonietta in Amsterdam, and recorded the impressive BIS CD of Beethoven. In addition, Oundjian is in now in his 26th year as a visiting professor at the Yale School of Music.
Born in Toronto, Oundjian was educated in England, where he studied the violin with Manoug Parikian. Subsequently, he attended the Royal College of Music in London, where he was awarded the Gold Medal for Most Distinguished Student and the Stoutzker Prize for excellence in violin playing. He completed his violin training at the Juilliard School in New York, where he studied with Ivan Galamian, Itzhak Perlman, and Dorothy DeLay. He was the first violinist of the renowned Tokyo String Quartet, a position he held for 14 years.
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James Ehnes
James Ehnes has rapidly established a pre-eminent reputation among concert violinists. He has performed with such renowned conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Ivan Fischer, Lorin Maazel, Michael Gielen and Hans Graf, appearing with orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, the United States, and Canada. Recent engagements include appearances in Europe with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Recitals have taken Ehnes to major cities around the world including London, Paris, Prague, Washington D.C., and Vancouver. He has also appeared at major international festivals including Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, the Marlboro Festival and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. As a chamber musician, he often performs in trio with cellist Jan Vogler and pianist Louis Lortie and has collaborated with such artists as Leif Ove Andsnes and Yo-Yo Ma.
Ehnes was born in 1976 in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. He began violin studies at the age of 4; at age 9 he became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin. He studied with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music, then in 1993 at The Juilliard School. He graduated from Julliard in 1997, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music.
Ehnes first gained national recognition in 1987 as winner of the Grand Prize in Strings at the Canadian Music Competition. The following year he won the First Prize in Strings at the Canadian Music Festival, the youngest musician ever to do so. At age 13, he made his orchestral solo debut with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. He has won numerous awards and prizes, including the first-ever Ivan Galamian Memorial Award, the Canada Council for the Arts’ prestigious Virginia Parker Prize, and a 2005 Avery Fisher Career Grant. In 2005, he was honored by Brandon University with a Doctor of Music degree (honoris causa).
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