Conductor and Musical Director
Of his debut in Austria, The Wiener Zeitung (Vienna News) proclaimed: “Maestro Owen must be a genius... how flowing and musical this young American was able to realize the music from the podium.” An invitation from Kurt Masur to conduct a reading with the New York Philharmonic followed shortly and now Maestro Owen has a busy career conducting both symphonic and operatic repertoire in Europe and the United States. From 2005-7, Maestro Owen was a conductor at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Duesseldorf Symphony in Germany as assistant to the general music director. In this position, Mr. Owen conducted and assisted on numerous operatic and symphonic productions with the Duesseldorf and Duisburg Symphonies. In the United States, Mr. Owen is a cover conductor at the New York Philharmonic. This season, Mr. Owen will be cover conducting all concerts of Sir Colin Davis. Mr. Owen is also Music Director and conductor of Camerata New York Orchestra and over the past eight seasons has worked with artists such as Alec Baldwin, Aprile Millo, Nathaniel Rosen and Alvin Ailey in concerts in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Mr. Owen was also visiting conducting associate at the San Francisco Opera and interim music director of the Westchester-Putnam Youth Symphony. Mr. Owen has conducted in Germany with the Ost/West Symphonie and Kammer Orchester, the Duisburg Symphony and the Duesseldorf Symphony; in Vienna with the Europa Symphony, Camerata Internazionale and Pro-Arte Orchestra and the Monterrey Symphony in Mexico (Orquesta Sinfónica UANL). In the United States, he has conducted, among others, the New York Philharmonic, the Jacksonville Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and was a conducting associate at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Recent guest-conducting engagements include the Rzeszow Philharmonic in Poland, the Pawling Concert Series and the Hamptons Music Festival. In 2007/8, Mr. Owen has been invited to conduct the Altoona Symphony as a candidate for music director. Mr. Owen has been featured in the New York Times, Opera News, Newsday and on New York classical radio stations WQXR and WMNR as well as on Polish and Mexican Radio and Television. Mr. Owen was a semifinalist in the 7th Fitelberg International Competition for Young Conductors hosted by the Polish Silesian Philharmonic. He also recently completed a recording for Albany Records of the opera "Rain" by R. Owen Sr., which had its fully staged world premiere in Lincoln Center under his direction in 2003.
Mr. Owen was born in 1971 in New York City into a musical family. He began studying piano and voice at age five and started his professional performing career at age eight as a boy soloist at the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Owen graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was a recipient of the Gerald Tracy piano scholarship. He received a Masters degree in accompanying from the Manhattan School of Music and studied conducting at the University for Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria. An accomplished pianist, Mr. Owen regularly gives recitals with his wife, a professional cellist. Mr. Owen resides with his wife and two sons in Brewster, New York.
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