Jayce Ogren

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With mounting success in both symphonic and operatic repertoire, Jayce Ogren is building a reputation as one of the finest young conductors to emerge from the United States in recent seasons.  He has recently been named the new Artistic Director of Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia.

Jayce Ogren began the 2016/17 season leading concerts with the Utah Symphony, the Brevard Music Festival, and the Colorado Symphony, and performances of Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donnain Montreal – a work he premiered in New York and recorded for Deutsche Grammophone with the BBC Symphony.   He once again leads a concert version of the work at the Paris Philharmonie at the end of the season.  He guests also with the Princeton Symphony, at the Casa da Musica in Portugal, and returns to the Indianapolis Symphony in  a season of repertoire ranging from an all-Mozart program to Vaughan Williams’ Third Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique toJohn Luther Adams’ Inuksuit   and Harold Meltzer’s Variations on a Summer Day in a performance at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust and subsequent recording.

Highlights of last season include leading Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Music Academy of the West and conducting the Ensemble Intercontemporain  in Paris in a program of Stockhausen, Jodlowski, Nono, and Andrew Norman. He led subscription weeks with the Colorado, Edmonton and Victoria Symphony orchestras, and Orchestra 2001; Bernstein's West Side Story with film for the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Dallas Symphony; and the world premiere of Jack Perla's Shalimar the Clown for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

Jayce has led the National Arts Centre Orchestra  in Ottawa with Emanuel Ax; Basil Twist's Rite of Spring with the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Lincoln Center's White Light Festival; the New York Philharmonic in their CONTACT! series of contemporary music; and new productions of Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw and Rossini's Mosè in Egitto with the New York City Opera, where he was Music Director, as well as Mozart's The Magic Flute and Bernstein's A Quiet Place, for which he won extensive critical acclaim. He also made his Canadian Opera debut in Stravinsky's The Nightingale & Other Short Fables and reprised The Turn of the Screw in staged performances with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Stepping in for James Levine, Jayceled the world premiere of Peter Lieberson's song cycle Songs of Love and Sorrow with Gerald Finley with the Boston Symphony.  His several engagements with the New York Philharmonic have included leading premieres of new works on their CONTACT! Series, and leading two concerts during the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL.  He has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New World Symphony, and led all-Stravinsky programs with the New York City Ballet.

Jayce Ogren's extensive work in contemporary music has included collaborations with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in programs at Columbia University's Miller Theatre, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, and at the Wien Modern Festival. He also conducted world premieres in Nico Muhly's contemporary festival, "A Scream and an Outrage," with the BBC Symphony at the Barbican.

European guest engagements have included the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and Robert Carson's production of My Fair Lady at the Chatelet in Paris. He led the European premiere of Bernstein's re-mastered West Side Story film with live orchestra with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, which he repeated with the Detroit Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He also traveled to South Africa to lead the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic, appeared with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Asturias Symphony, and led Le Nozze di Figaro at the Verbier Festival Academy.

A native of Washington State, Ogren received his Bachelor's Degree in Composition from St. Olaf College in 2001 and his Master's Degree in Conducting from the New England Conservatory in 2003. With a Fulbright Grant, he completed a postgraduate diploma in orchestral conducting at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm where he studied with the legendary Jorma Panula and spent two summers at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen. He was appointed by Franz Welser-Möst as Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Youth Orchestra and has led the Cleveland Orchestra in regular season subscription concerts and at The Blossom Festival.

As a composer, Ogren's works have been performed at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music, the Brevard Music Center, the American Choral Directors Association Conference and the World Saxophone Congress. His Symphonies of Gaia has been performed by ensembles on three continents and is the title track on a DVD featuring the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra.

Ogren is an award-winning triathlete, most recently completing the 2015 Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge running the Boston Marathon and the Big Sur Marathon back to back. He also completed the 2014 Ironman Lake Placid Triathlon and one week later finished fourth in his age group in the 2014 New York City Triathlon.

He makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.