"Best of all, the Toronto Symphony and its music director delivered the music with utter conviction... This was an orchestra at its most riveting." Toronto Star, 2012
Music Director Peter Oundjian celebrates ten years with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the 13/14 season. The Orchestra is flourishing under his tenure, attracting new audiences, earning rave reviews, releasing recordings on TSO Live (a self-produced recording label), and travelling for concert tours across North America.
About Peter Oundjian
Toronto-born conductor Peter Oundjian, noted for his probing musicality, collaborative spirit, and engaging personality, has been an instrumental figure in the rebirth of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since his appointment as Music Director in 2004. In addition to conducting the Orchestra in dynamic performances which have achieved outstanding artistic acclaim, he has been greatly involved in a variety of new initiatives which have strengthened the ensemble’s presence in the community and attracted a young and diverse audience. In 2004, he established an annual celebration of new music, showcasing new and premièring commissioned works. Now an audience favourite, the New Creations Festival celebrates the best in contemporary orchestral music and attracts celebrated contemporary composers and guest artists.
In his tenure with the TSO, Mr. Oundjian has also released seven recordings on the Orchestra’s self-produced record label, TSO Live, with an eighth recording to be released in 2013. The award-winning documentary Five Days in September: The Rebirth of An Orchestra is available on DVD and chronicles Peter Oundjian’s first week as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to his post in Toronto, Peter Oundjian is Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, since September 2012. Mr. Oundjian was Principal Guest Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2010 and played a major role at the Caramoor International Music Festival in New York between 1997 and 2007. Since 1981, he has served as a visiting professor at the Yale School of Music since 1981 and was awarded with the university’s Sanford Medal in 2013. In May 2009, Mr. Oundjian received an honourary doctorate from the San Francisco Conservatory.
During the 2012/2013 season, Peter Oundjian's guest conducting includes the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Japan), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with performances in Paris as well as the opening concert of the Prague Spring Festival, L'Orchestre de Paris, and the Detroit and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras.
Peter Oundjian was educated in England, where he studied the violin with Manoug Parikian. He then attended the Royal College of Music in London, where he was awarded the Gold Medal for Most Distinguished Student and 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. Peter Oundjian was the first violinist of the renowned Tokyo String Quartet, a position he held for fourteen years. He and his wife Nadine have two children, Lara and Peter.