Conductor Hobart Earle secured much of the same integrity of performance from his players in Mahler Symphony No. 2 -
The Resurrection ... this must go down as one of
the best performances of Mahler in Perth.
Sunday Times, Perth, Western Australia

Born in Venezuela of American parents, conductor Hobart Earle has just finished his eleventh season as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra. During his tenure, the OPO's development has been unprecedented. The orchestra is the only performing arts organization in the entire country to have been raised from regional status to national status since the independence of Ukraine in 1991. Having first conducted the orchestra while the Soviet Union was still in existence, Maestro Earle went on to become the first U.S. citizen to be named Music Director and Principal Conductor of a symphony orchestra in the former USSR. Since then, Hobart Earle has conducted several hundred concerts with the Odessa Philharmonic to wide acclaim - in major concert halls in the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, France, Greece, Bulgaria, Russia and a total of twelve different cities throughout Ukraine.

The concert halls Hobart Earle has performed in with the OPO include the Musikverein in Vienna, the Philharmonie in Cologne, the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, the Barbican Hall in London, the National Auditorium in Madrid, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Davies Hall in San Francisco and the General Assembly of the United Nations. Maestro Earle has led the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra not only in international orchestra subscription series in the countries listed, but also in such music festivals the Bregenz Spring Festival, Austria, the Festival of Perth, Australia, the Lugano Spring Festival, Switzerland, the Chichester Festivities in England, the Nuits Musicales du Suquet in Cannes, France , the Varna Summer Festival, Bulgaria and the Cultural Capital of Europe 1997 in Thessaloniki, Greece.) In honor of his work with the OPO, Hobart Earle was awarded the title “Distinguished Artist of Ukraine”, the first and only foreigner in the history of Ukraine so honored.

Under his dynamic leadership, the Orchestra has become a great source of pride at home with the concert hall regularly sold out (a far cry from the situation in the late 1980s when the attendance at concerts in Odessa was sparse at best). One of the most popular figures in the city of Odessa, Maestro Earle was presented with the annual "Friend of Ukraine" award by the Washington Group (an association of Ukrainian/American professionals) on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the independence of Ukraine in 1996. He was the first person in the arts to receive the award. Hobart Earle has conducted the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Vienna Tonkuenstler Orchestra, the Noord-Nederlands Orkest in Holland, and in the U. S. the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra. As founder and music director of the American Music Ensemble Vienna/Ensemble for Viennese Music New York from 1987-1992, Hobart Earle premiered many works in addition to reviving several lesser-known compositions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was a student of Ferdinand Leitner in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood.

Hobart Earle 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 graduate of Princeton University, where he was awarded the Isodore and Helen Sacks Memorial Prize in Music. Hobart Earle and the American Music Ensemble Vienna/Ensemble for Viennese Music New York have two compact discs on the Albany Records label; his work with the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra is on the ASV label.

During his tenure in Odessa, Maestro Earle has led many performances of repertoire not previously performed there. Aside from a number of compositions by living composers, Hobart Earle has presided over the first performances in Odessa of such works as Gustav Mahler's 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 9th symphonies. This list continues with the Odessa premieres of Anton Bruckner's 8th symphony, Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs", Elgar's 'Enigma' Variations, Alban Berg's "3 Excerpts from Wozzeck", Gustav Holst's "The Planets", Aaron Copland's "El Salon Mexico" and "Lincoln Portrait" and Leonard Bernstein's 'Jeremiah' symphony.