These concerts are the North Carolina Symphony debut for Jayce Ogren.

Conductor Jayce Ogren is Music Director of the Monterey Symphony in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, Assistant Professor of Music and Associate Director of Orchestras at the University of Michigan, where he conducts the University Philharmonia Orchestra, Contemporary Directions Ensemble, and Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of Philadelphia’s contemporary music ensemble Orchestra 2001.

He began his professional career as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (2006–2009). Since then, he has appeared with orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Ogren has conducted projects including Basil Twist’s The Rite of Spring with Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center; the world premiere of David Lang’s Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, bringing together more than 400 amateur and professional musicians in Philadelphia; the 30th-anniversary performances of Frank Zappa’s The Yellow Shark with Orchestra 2001; and the world premiere of Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

For more than a decade, Ogren has collaborated closely with the Leonard Bernstein Office. His projects have included the New York premiere of Bernstein’s only opera, A Quiet Place, at Lincoln Center, and the European premiere of the film-with-live-orchestra version of West Side Story at London’s Royal Albert Hall. A longtime collaborator of singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, he conducted the U.S. premiere of Wainwright’s opera Prima Donna at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the recording with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Ogren has taught and conducted at Princeton University, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Cleveland Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Music Academy of the West, and the Verbier Festival.

As a composer, Ogren has received commissions from ensembles throughout the United States. He earned degrees from St. Olaf College, New England Conservatory, and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.