Olari Elts, conductor
Winner of the Second International Sibelius Conductors’ Competition in 2000, and of the 1999 Jorma Panula conducting Competition in Finland, Olari Elts makes his Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut in February 2005.

In September 2001 Olari Elts was appointed Principal Conductor of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. In addition to regular appearances with this orchestra, highlights of his 2000-2001 season included concerts with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Sinfoniker and Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. He also debuted with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Radio Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt, Südwestrundfunk (SWR) Stuttgart and the Flanders Philharmonic. At the beginning of the 2002-2003 season he made a highly successful Australian debut conducting the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and he completed the season with reinvitations to SWR Stuttgart and Radio Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt. In 2003 he made a successful debut with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and, at very short notice, gave very successful debut concerts with the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin. The 2003-2004 season includes his debuts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Tonkünstler, Vienna, as well as a further return visit to Adelaide.

Olari Elts formed his own contemporary music ensemble in 1993. Called NYYD, the group gave its debut performance at the International Festival of New Music in Estonia. The ensemble is flexible in its makeup — “from a soloist to a chamber orchestra” — and Mr. Elts has programmed and performed several adventurous concert series with them.

In 1996 Olari Elts made his operatic debut at the Estonian National Opera, conducting Britten’s Albert Herring, followed by Puccini’s Il Trittico in 1997. He continues his partnership with the Estonian National Opera by conducting this season’s production of Don Giovanni.

Mr. Elts initially studied choral conducting at the Estonian Academy of Music with Kuno Areng. Between 1993 and 2000 he furthered his orchestral conducting studies at the Vienna Academy of Music with Uros Lajovic, and at the Estonian Academy with Roman Matsov and Eri Klas. During this time Mr. Elts also studied privately with Jorma Panula and attended master classes with Esa Pekka Salonen and Neeme Järvi. Olari Elts was born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1971.