Orchestra Phion has a new chief conductor: Alexei Ogrintchouk. ‘As a conductor you have to be able to breathe properly’

Not everyone will have seen this coming: Alexei Ogrintchouk, principal oboist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and one of the world’s star oboists, will be Phion’s new chief conductor. The orchestra of Gelderland and Overijssel and Ogrintchouk announced this today. From September he will be with the orchestra for at least three years, with four programs per year. De facto that means eight weeks a year, because Phion plays programs relatively often in order to serve the entire region.

“I am very excited,” says Ogrintchouk (44) very excited in a cafe in his hometown of Amstelveen on Thursday morning, a few days before the musicians of the orchestra will hear the news. “I feel very warm, very good. We have already done a few projects, the first was in 2020, and I have always felt very much at home at Phion. They have the spirit, the open attitude, and they are very eager to try new things.”

Ogrintchouk studied oboe in his hometown Moscow and in Paris and became principal oboist of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of twenty. Seven years later, in 2005, he switched to the Concertgebouw Orchestra, where he is and will remain until today. Conducting has crept in alongside playing the oboe, via chamber orchestras that he led while playing in oboe solo concerts, to more serious guest conducting with a baton. He has performed for the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Brussels Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, among others. He made a beautiful album in 2020 with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and bassoonist Bram van Sambeek. But he has never been a chef: Phion will be his chef debut.

Also listen to this podcast, which explains what a chief conductor does: ‘Why is the new conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra so controversial?‘

Agreement: the breath

And that without ever having followed a conducting course. “I am very fortunate to have had the best conductors in the world right in front of me for 24 years. During those years I often split myself in two. One half was still playing the oboe as best I could, but the other half was paying more and more attention to whoever was in front of us. How does this conductor bring us together, with what words, and how does he or she use the time?” And who did he prefer to look up to? “I have had many good conductors, but there are only a few of whom I, bang, can immediately feel the concerts again. Valery Gergjev, Mariss Jansons, Bernard Haitink, Iván Fischer and Kurt Masur, for example. And now also Klaus Mäkelä. They have something in common: the gift of first listening to what an orchestra already offers, and then cooking a dish to your own taste using those ingredients.” That’s how Ogrintchouk hopes to do it too. And he may not have received any conducting training, but there have been some ‘trustworthy advisers’ over the years. “Mariss Jansons herself has given me very valuable and direct tips.”

Many great conductors are musicians whose instruments have become dusty due to their conducting success. The leadership of a regional orchestra can be an ideal training ground for a musician with great conducting aspirations. Does Ogrintchouk also want to hang up his oboe in the willows, if his conductorship takes off? He cannot answer that question. “Because the combination of playing the oboe and conducting, two things that are very complementary to me, makes me so happy now. There is an important overlap between the two: the breath. You can imagine breathing with the oboe, but breathing is also vital for a conductor. You can move and talk all you want, but you don’t really connect with everyone from the front row to the back until you breathe together. I believe that very strongly. And I am very lucky that breathing through my hobo has become part of my DNA.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x9gCCBbAxc

Forge together

Ogrintchouk does not choose the easiest orchestra to start with. Phion has only existed as such since 2019, as a merger of Het Gelders Orkest (Gelderland) and the Orkest van het Oosten (Overijssel). Only since this season have they actually been operating as one orchestra, according to director Joris Nassenstein. The first chief conductor, Otto Tausk, quietly let Phion go as chief at the end of last season. Ogrintchouk’s task is to further forge the two orchestras into one, and to give it its own unique sound. A chef who performs for his orchestra for only eight weeks a year is the rule rather than the exception these days, but isn’t four programs a little bit for the better ironwork? Ogrintchouk wiggles a bit in his chair and says slowly: “It’s a good start.” And then more certain: “Phion works differently from the Concertgebouw Orchestra: after a short rehearsal period we give everything there, always in the same building, and then we start with the next program. Phion is a regional orchestra that has to play a program more often, in many different places. That is an advantage, because it gives you a lot of time to work on one piece of music, and you can work in great detail. And the fact that it always has to be in a different room, which always sounds a little different, keeps the musicians on their toes. And musicians who are sharp, play well!”

Opera accompaniments at the Nederlandse Reisopera, which Phion does a lot, Ogrintchouk does not expect to get around to for the time being. He is especially looking forward to next season Fifth Symphony by Mahler, and he looks forward to “very healthy symphonic music by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. They require optimum clarity and balance between the instrument groups, healthy for any orchestra to work on.” Working on balance, that will also apply to his own life in the near future, because, in addition to being a top-level chef, remaining the principal oboist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra will demand a lot from him. “At some point I will have to evaluate for myself how that goes.”

And no, with a laugh that he can hardly suppress throughout the conversation, he solemnly promises: “The oboists of Phion need not be afraid that I will pay extra attention to them.”