Gregory Oh gained his notoriety as a new music revolutionary but his wandering of the genres has seen him appear in places from the Berlin C3 Fest at legendary techno club Berghain to the Beijing Modern Music Festival, and the Classical:NEXT opening night gala in Rotterdam to the Lincoln Centre in New York City. He is a big believer in celebrating the culture of today, whether by playing and conducting, collaborating on theatre productions or tackling big ideas and new media. His own projects include Halo Ballet – live music and dance within a networked game environment, and 21C Dido and Aeneas – a remix of Purcell\’s opera that is \”the kind of bracing, entertaining work that deserves a larger audience and a longer run\” (NOW Magazine).
As a pianist, he was praised in the National Post for his \”mesmerizing performance, intelligence and soul; imagination and insight. He revealed a visceral sense of tempo, excellent voicing, a wonderful pianistic palette, and a warm honest sound\”, and lauded in the Toronto Star for \”superhuman interpretation of André Ristic\’s keyboard-smashing avalanche of notes.\” He has worked with many of our generation\’s most distinguished composers, including Vinko Globokar, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams, Frederic Rzewski, Unsuk Chin, Jörg Widmann, R. Murray Schafer, Kaija Saariaho, Toshio Hosokawa and Peter Eötvos.
He holds graduate degrees from the University of Toronto, where he completed his studies with Marietta Orlov as the top graduating pianist, and the University of Michigan, where he worked with Martin Katz.
A Dora-winning music director and conductor, his credits include R.U.R. A Torrent of Light (Tapestry New Opera), The Cave (Soulpepper/Luminato) Bearing (Signal Theatre/Luminato), While 100 Guitars Gently Weep (Bradyworks/Luminato), L\’arbre de Borobodur (Evergreen Contemporary Gamelan), The Raven (University of Toronto), Melancholiac (Bad New Days/Summerworks), Urgent Voices (Continuum), Ride the Wind (Roscoe Mitchell/MTO), Crazy to Kill (Toronto Masque Theatre) and on the premieres of Cold Spring (2011) at New York\’s EMPAC, Native Earth\’s Giiwedin (2010) as well as XXX Live Nude Girls! (2009) in the Summerworks Festival. He was ensemble Music Director at San Diego Opera, and has also worked at the Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper, Canadian Stage, Volcano Theatre, IFT Theatre, Theatre Direct, Florida State Opera, the University of Michigan Opera Program, Michigan Opera Works, Tapestry New Opera, InterArts Matrix, Autumn Leaf and Lyric Opera San Diego. He has held faculty positions at the Banff Centre for the Arts, both in Music and Sound, and Theatre Arts, where he worked with the Contemporary Opera and Song Training Program.
He is the artistic director of the highly acclaimed new music group Toca Loca with Simon Docking and Aiyun Huang, and \”is clearly on his way, through performances, commissioning and programming, to making a lasting contribution to new music in this country.\” (National Post/CAN). He served as the contemporary music curator at Toronto\’s Music Gallery (2007-2014) and the artistic director of the Open Ears Festival (2012-2016). He plays with many ensembles, including Continuum Contemporary Music, Arraymusic, Soundstreams, NEXUS, Contact Contemporary Music and New Music Concerts.
He spends his spare time trying to fix his bike and watching bad television.
Shorter Bio
Gregory Oh tends to wander the genres, appearing in places from the legendary Berlin techno club Berghain to the Lincoln Centre. Recently he conducted Bearing (Signal) and While 100 Guitars Gently Weep (Bradyworks) at the Luminato Festival and the Canadian premiere of Toshio Hosokawa\’s The Raven at the University of Toronto New Music Festival, appeared as the piano soloist in Scott Good\’s Hands of Orlac with the London Symphonia and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, toured Rwanda and the UK with Neema Bickersteth and Century Song (Volcano), and was featured as conductor and pianist at the Shanghai New Music Festival. He also has also worked with and performed the music of hundreds of composers including Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Frederic Rzewski and Jörg Widmann. Other credits: Continuum, Soundstreams, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, the Evergreen Gamelan Club, Native Earth, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, Tapestry New Opera, Canadian Rep Theatre, Theatre Direct, Arraymusic, New Music Concerts and San Diego Opera. He teaches at the University of Toronto and NYO Canada.
(current as of March 2019)
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