Biography
Edwin Outwater has earned recognition as a conductor through community outreach programs, mentorship of emerging performers, and projects that cross stylistic boundaries, among them repeated collaborations with the metal band Metallica. Born April 12, 1971, in Santa Monica, California, he earned cum laude honors at Harvard University upon completing his studies in 1993. Though an English major, he first took up the baton at the school by leading the Bach Society Orchestra and contributed original scores to the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, its annual burlesque production that features cross-dressing performers. He continued his training at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he received a master’s degree in conducting after working with Heiichiro Ohyama and Paul Polivnick. Subsequent early appointments took him to the Tulsa Philharmonic as assistant conductor, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival in Molise, Italy, as principal conductor, and the Florida Philharmonic as both resident conductor and associate guest conductor. While in Florida his focus on younger listeners grew as he developed the Florida Philharmonic Family Series and Music for Youth program, which reached more than 40,000 fifth-grade students throughout South Florida. His entry into rock music also occurred during this time when he conducted Metallica’s 1992 album Nothing Else Matters, his first appearance on record. From 2001 to 2005 he served as music director of the San Francisco Youth Symphony, directing the ensemble on a European tour that featured concerts at the Vienna Musikverein, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. He simultaneously held the post of resident conductor at the San Francisco Symphony and has returned to the orchestra on later occasions. In San Francisco he presented the orchestra’s annual family concerts, which attracted large audiences, and guided its joint performances and recordings with Metallica. Outwater then led Canada’s Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra as music director from 2007 to 2017 and retains the title of conductor laureate with the ensemble. Guest engagements have taken him to major orchestras in the United States and abroad, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Royal Philharmonic in London. He also assisted conductor Michael Tilson Thomas with two concerts presented by the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. As of the early 2020s he held the position of music director at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 2022 he conducted the Chicago Symphony on the album Mason Bates: Philharmonia Fantastique -- The Making of the Orchestra.
Albums
