Peter Oundjian is a dynamic presence in the conducting world with an international career leading preeminent orchestras in many of the world's major musical centers, from New York and Seattle to Amsterdam and Berlin.
The 2026-2027 season marks Oundjian’s second season as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony. He conducts six programs including Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 “Titan,” Beethoven’s Symphonies No. 5 and No. 9, and works by Gabriela Ortiz, Vivian Fung, and Kelly-Marie Murphy. In the 2025-2026 season, Oundjian conducted the Symphony in its debut performance at Carnegie Hall, joined onstage by legendary violinist and Oundjian’s longtime friend Itzhak Perlman. As Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival (CMF), he continues to program and conduct concerts each summer that delight audiences with beloved masterpieces alongside music written by living composers.
Elsewhere in 2026-2027, Oundjian leads the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in an all-American program, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in a program of John Adams, Joan Tower, and Samuel Barber, and appears with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Louisville Orchestra. Internationally, Oundjian conducts the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the Canadian Premiere of Joan Tower’s Saxophone Concerto, and the ADDA Simfonica in Alicante, Spain.
Over the course of his 14-year tenure at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which concluded in 2018, he reinvigorated the orchestra with acclaimed innovative programming, artistic collaborations, extensive audience growth, national and international tours and several outstanding recordings, including Vaughan Williams’s Orchestral Works, which garnered a Grammy nomination and a Juno Award. Under his leadership as Music Director, the Symphony underwent a transformation that significantly strengthened its presence in the world. He currently serves as Conductor Emeritus of the Symphony.
From 2012-2018, Oundjian served as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, which he led on several international tours, including North America, China, and a European festival tour with performances at the Bregenz Festival and Dresden Festival, as well as in Innsbruck, Bergamo, Ljubljana, and elsewhere. His final appearance as the orchestra’s Music Director was at the 2018 BBC Proms where he conducted Britten’s epic War Requiem.
Oundjian served as Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 2005 to 2008 and Artistic Director of the Caramoor International Music Festival in New York from 1997 to 2007. He was also Music Director of the Amsterdam Sinfonietta from 1998-2002. Throughout his career, Oundjian has appeared as guest conductor with the country’s leading orchestras, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and San Francisco Symphonies, among others.
Oundjian has been a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music since 1981, and has received honorary doctorates from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
JUNE 2026. AT THE REQUEST OF THE ARTIST – PLEASE DO NOT ALTER THIS BIOGRAPHY
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