ARVO VOLMER Chief Conductor and Music Director

Arvo Volmer took up his four-year appointment as Music Director of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in January 2004.

He began his professional conducting career with the Estonian National Opera in 1985, while still a student at the Estonian Music Academy. He made his debut with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in 1987, became their Associate Conductor in 1989 and was their Music Director between 1993 and 2001. In Spring 2005 he concludes a long tenure as Music Director of the Oulu Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1994. In August 2004 he started as the Artistic Director of the Estonian National Opera.

Arvo Volmer’s success at the 1989 Nikolai Malko Competition in Copenhagen launched an international career that has seen him conduct almost all the symphony orchestras in Scandinavia, including the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras, Malmö and Gothenburg National Symphony Orchestras and Stockholm’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also conducted orchestras in UK, France,

Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Holland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Israel and Iceland.

Recent highlights have included concerts with the Orchestre National de France, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Symphoniker, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra of Moscow and the St Petersburg, Dortmund, Jena and Münster Philharmonic Orchestras.

Arvo Volmer is also active as a conductor of opera, working frequently with Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Finnish National Opera, Norwegian Opera, Oulu Opera and Malmö Music Theatre.

He has recorded extensively, including the complete symphonies of Eduard Tubin and the complete orchestral works of Leevi Madetoja as well as discs of Swedish and Estonian contemporary music.

Arvo Volmer made his Australian debut in 2001 and has conducted the Adelaide, Tasmanian, West Australian and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and The Queensland Orchestra. In 2005, he returned to Adelaide, Queensland and Tasmania.

In 2006, Arvo Volmer will make his debut with the Sydney Symphony and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and return to Adelaide, Hobart and Brisbane.