One of North America’s most creative, dynamic, and engaging conductors, Edwin Outwater is music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in Ontario, Canada. Now in his fourth season, he has revitalized the orchestra and gained international attention for his innovative projects and brilliant performances. The orchestra’s Intersections series has linked orchestral music to diverse musical generes and other creative disciplines. These programs include collaborations with composers Mason Bates, Gabriela Lena Frank, Nicole Lizeé and Nico Muhly, authors Daniel Handler and Daniel Levitin, rock musicians Dan Deacon and Richard Reed Parry, crossover musicians Gilles Apap and Time for Three, and a concert about Music & Food in collaboration with local chefs. In 2009 Mr. Outwater and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony were inivited by Koerner Hall at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music to be part of their subscription series. Mr. Outwater and the orchestra will return this season with two new Intersections performances. The 2009-2010 season also marked the opening of the Conrad Centre for the Performing Arts, an innovative space that serves as the orchestra’s administrative offices, rehearsal space, and a multidisciplinary arts hub for the entire community.

Mr. Outwater’s recent highlights include debuts with the National Symphony of Washington D.C., the St. Louis Symphony, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada. Upcoming debuts this season include the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the National Music Camp in Adelaide, Australia, and the Orquestra Nacional do Porto. In the United States, Mr. Outwater has conducted the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as the symphony orchestras of Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Houston, Detroit, Seattle, and Indianapolis, and many others.  In Canada, he has  conducted the symphonies of Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Victoria.  International appearances include the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the New Zealand Symphony, the Adelaide Symphony, the Malmö Symphony, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Mexico City Philharmonic, the Orquestra Sinfonica de Xalapa, and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. In 2009 he made his professional opera debut with the San Francisco Opera conducting Verdi’s La Traviata. That season, he also conducted the YouTube Symphony at Carnegie Hall with Michael Tilson Thomas and Tan Dun.

Edwin Outwater was Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony from 2001-2006. While there, he worked closely with Michael Tilson Thomas, accompanied the orchestra on tour and conducted numerous concerts each season. He made his subscription debut in 2002 with Kurt Masur conducting Britten’s War Requiem, and has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Evelyn Glennie, and many others. On two occasions, Mr. Outwater stepped in for an ailing Michael Tilson Thomas, conducting performances of Stravinsky’s complete Pulcinella, as well as works by Beethoven, Wagner and Cherubini. In July 2006 Mr. Outwater conducted the world premiere performance and recording of The Composer is Dead, by Nathaniel Stookey and Lemony Snicket which was recently released HarperCollins. In 2008, his recording with the San Francisco Symphony of the music of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate was released to wide acclaim. He returned to the San Francisco Symphony for subscription performances in the 2009-2010 season.

From 2001-2005 Mr. Outwater was Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. During his tenure, he led the orchestra in all of their concerts as well as on tour to Europe in the summer of 2004. During the tour, the orchestra made its debut at Vienna’s Musikverein, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and returned to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Before joining the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Outwater served as Resident Conductor and Associate Guest Conductor of the Florida Philharmonic. He has also held posts as Associate Conductor of the Festival-Institute at Round Top (a renowned music-training program based in Texas), Principal Conductor of the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival in Molise, Italy, and Assistant Conductor of the Tulsa Philharmonic.

Mr. Outwater’s work in music education and community outreach has been widely acclaimed. In 2004 his education programs at the San Francisco Symphony were given the Leonard Bernstein award for excellence in educational programming, and his Chinese New Year Program was given the MET LIFE award for community outreach. In Kitchener-Waterloo Mr. Outwater redesigned the orchestra’s education series and initiated myriad community connections. At the San Francisco Symphony, he conducted Family Concerts, Adventures in Music performances, which are heard by more than 25,000 students from San Francisco schools each year, and Concerts for Kids, which serve students from throughout Northern California. In Florida, Mr. Outwater designed the Florida Philharmonic Family Series and its Music for Youth program, which was heard annually by more than 40,000 fifth-grade students in South Florida. He appears frequently with training orchestras and music festivals throughout the United  States and across the world, including the New World Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the National Youth Orcehstra of New Zealand, the Music Academy of the West, the National Orchestral Institute, the Festival-Institute at Round Top, and the Mannes Conservatory Orchestra. Mr. Outwater has served as music director of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony, and has been on the faculties of the University of Tulsa, the Idyllwild Arts Academy, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A native of Santa Monica, California, Edwin Outwater attended Harvard University, graduating cum laude in 1993 with a degree in English literature. While at Harvard, he was music director of the Bach Society Orchestra, the Harvard Din and Tonics (an acclaimed a cappella group), and wrote the music for the 145th annual production of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. He received his master’s degree in conducting from UC Santa Barbara, where he studied with Heiichiro Ohyama, and Paul Polivinick. He also studied music theory and composition with John Stewart, Joel Feigin, and Leonard Stein.