Hobart Earle

Born in Venezuela to American parents, conductor Hobart Earle has earned an excellent reputation as a master of his craft on several continents.

As music director and principal conductor of the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Hobart Earle has established the ensemble as a permanent fixture in international musical life. The musicians have performed in concert halls such as the Musikverein Wien, the Philharmonie in Cologne, Barbican Hall in London, the National Auditorium in Madrid, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, as well as at the United Nations General Assembly.

Hobart Earle is regularly invited to conduct other orchestras. Engagements have taken him to the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, the Noord Nederlands Orkest in Holland, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Israel, as well as the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and the Russian National Orchestra. Earle has conducted opera productions with the Greek National Opera and at the Mythos Opera Festival. He has made numerous recordings with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra "Evgeny Svetlanov" and the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra for Naxos and Toccata Records. Soloists with whom Hobart Earle has collaborated include pianists Dmitri Alexeev, Piotr Anderszewski, Boris Berezovsky, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Mikhail Pletnev and Ivo Pogorelich, violinists Vadim Gluzman, Sergei Krylov, Liana Issakadze, Silvia Marcovici and Ingolf Turban, violist Yuri Bashmet, cellists David Geringas, Steven Isserlis, Daniel Mueller-Schott and Matt Haimovitz, and singers Elena Obraztsova, Paata Burchuladze, Maria Guleghina and Alexander Tsymbalyuk.

His performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony at the Musikverein Wien was recorded by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and awarded "Best Classical Album 2002" at the JPFolks Music Awards in Hollywood, California. His recording of music by Myroslav Skoryk was selected in the "Chairman's Choice 2014 - Klaus Heymann's Favorite Naxos Releases". In recognition of his work with the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Hobart Earle became the first American in the history of Ukraine to be awarded the title of Distinguished Artist of Ukraine and People's Artist of Ukraine, and a star in the ‘Perseus’ constellation was named ‘Hobart Earle’.

He was a student of Ferdinand Leitner in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood. He 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.