Hobart Earle – conductor
Born in Venezuela of American parents, Hobart Earle has developed a reputation on several continents as a dynamic and exciting conductor.
Currently Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr. Earle has elevated the orchestra to a position of international prominence, unprecedented in the history of the organization. He has led hundreds of concerts with the Odessa Philharmonic to wide acclaim — in the major concert halls of the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, France, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia and throughout Ukraine. Highlights of Maestro Earle’s career include performances in the Musikverein (Vienna), the Philharmonie (Cologne), the Beethovenhalle (Bonn), the Barbican Hall (London), the National Auditorium (Madrid), the Liszt Academy (Budapest) the Great Halls of the Moscow Conservatory and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society, and in the United States he has appeared in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Davies Hall in San Francisco and the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Hobart Earle’s festival credits include appearances at such music festivals as the Bregenz Spring Festival (Austria), the Festival of Perth (Australia), the Lugano Spring Festival (Switzerland), the Chichester Festivities (England), the Nuits Musicales du Suquet in Cannes (France), the Budapest Spring Festival, (Hungary), the Varna Summer Festival (Bulgaria) and the Cultural Capital of Europe 1997 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
In Europe, he has led such orchestras as the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Vienna Tonkuenstler Orchestra, the Noord-Nederlands Orkest in Holland, the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra della Toscana and Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Italy, the Athens State Symphony, the Krakow Philharmonic, “Sinfonia Iuventus” in Warsaw and in the U.S., the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, the Miami Symphony Orchestra and the San Diego Chamber Orchestra.
At the Greek National Opera in Athens, he conducted new productions of ‘Snowqueen’ and ‘Don Quixote’. In Asia he has been a guest of the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Southeast Asian Youth Orchestra. In recent years, he has appeared frequently in Russia, with such Moscow orchestras as the Russian State Symphony Orchestra (‘Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra’), the ‘Novaya Rossiya’ Symphony Orchestra with Yuri Bashmet, the Russian National Orchestra with Mikhail Pletnev, the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, as well as at the Philharmonic in St. Petersburg.
In recognition of his work with the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Hobart Earle was awarded the titles “Distinguished Artist of Ukraine” and “People’s Artist of Ukraine”, the first foreigner in the history of Ukraine so honored. One of the most popular figures in the city of Odessa, Maestro Earle has been presented with numerous local awards over the years. In 2003, in conjunction with leading newspapers in Ukraine, the Russian Cosmonaut Association named a star in the ‘Perseus’ constellation as ‘Hobart Earle’.
As founder and music director of the American Music Ensemble Vienna/Ensemble for Viennese Music New York from 1987-1991, Hobart Earle premiered many works by living composers in addition to reviving several lesser-known compositions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During his tenure in Odessa, Hobart Earle has also led numerous performances of repertoire never before heard there. In particular, he is the first conductor to perform such major works in Odessa as: Gustav Mahler’s 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 9th symphonies, Anton Bruckner’s 8th symphony, Richard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs”, Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations, Alban Berg’s “3 Excerpts from Wozzeck”, Gustav Holst’s “The Planets”, Aaron Copland’s “El Salon Mexico” and “Lincoln Portrait” and Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Jeremiah’ symphony.
Hobart Earle and the American Music Ensemble Vienna can be heard on two world premiere CDs of American Music on the Albany Records label, including music by George Whitefield Chadwick, Henry Gilbert and Miguel del Aguila. On the ASV label, Maestro Earle has recorded two highly acclaimed CDs with the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra of previously unrecorded music by Ukrainian composers Mykola Kolessa, Myroslav Skoryk, Yevhen Stankovych and Reinhold Gliere, and on the Naxos label, a live CD of Myroslav Skoryk’s 75th birthday concerts. His performance of Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony with the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra in Vienna’s Musikverein in 2001 was recorded by the Austrian Radio live in concert, and awarded “Best Classical Album 2002” at the ‘JPFolks Music Awards’ in Hollywood, California.
Hobart Earle has performed with such pianists as Dmitri Alexeev, Piotr Anderszewski, Boris Berezovsky, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Arnaldo Cohen, Jean-Philippe Collard, Peter Donohoe, Sam Haywood, Ilya Itin, Valery Kuleshov, Francesco Libetta, Pietro de Maria, Yevgeniy Mogilevsky, Gulsin Onay, Mikhail Pletnev, Ivo Pogorelich and Nikolai Petrov – violinists such as Dmitry Berlinsky, Pavel Berman, Vadim Gluzman, Sergei Krylov, Liana Issakadze, Silvia Marcovici, Victor Pikaizen, Valeriy Sokolov, Ingolf Turban and Victor Tretyakov – violist Yuri Bashmet – violoncellists Steven Isserlis, Alexander Knaziev, Matt Haimovitz and such singers as Paata Burchuladze, Vladimir Chernov, Maria Guleghina, Elena Obraztsova, Olga Savova.
He was a student of Ferdinand Leitner in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood. Hobart Earle studied conducting at the Academy of Music in Vienna; received a performer’s diploma in clarinet from Trinity College of Music, London; and is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University, where he studied composition with Milton Babbitt, Edward Cone, Paul Lansky and Claudio Spies. In 2007, he was awarded the title of “honorary professor” of the Academy of Music in Odessa. In 2014, Hobart Earle was recognized as one of 30 “Professionals of the Year” by Musical America Worldwide.