Regularly praised for his charisma on and off podium as well as for his breadth of orchestral repertoire, Olivier Ochanine is the 1st Prize Winner of the 2015 Antal Dorati International Conducting Competition in Budapest, Hungary, in which he surpassed nearly 120 other conductors from 23 countries. In addition, he is winner of the prestigious The American Prize (2015) in the Professional Orchestra Conducting division. Olivier is also 2nd Prize Winner in the 2015 London Classical Soloists International Conducting Competition. Currently, Ochanine is the founding Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Sun Symphony Orchestra of Hanoi, one of the best orchestras to have emerged in recent years in Southeast Asia. With the SSO, Ochanine has collaborated with such artists as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Sumi Jo, Sergei Dogadin and Benjamin Grosvenor. The orchestra has received rave reviews from both domestic and international concertgoers. Ochanine is also the youngest to have been Music Director of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra in the orchestra's history. His stint with the PPO spanned two three-year terms from 2010 to 2016. Ochanine’s term with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the nation's leading orchestra, started with the 2010-2011 performance season. Under his leadership, the orchestra performed numerous Philippine premieres. In June 2016, the orchestra performed at the world-renowned Carnegie Hall, a project that Ochanine spearheaded for three years to bring it to a reality. Through his initiative, the orchestra is the first Filipino orchestra ever to have performed in the revered venue. In the Philippines, Ochanine has been an active clinician, leading chamber music masterclasses at schools; he also led conducting masterclasses for the Cultural Center of the Philippines. As part of his outreach mission, Olivier served as head visiting conductor for the Orchestra of the Filipino Youth, a program geared toward talented youth that stem from severely unfortunate financial backgrounds. A native of Paris, Olivier Ochanine began music studies in France. He continued music studies in the United States, and expanded his focus to orchestral conducting, taking up graduate studies and attending master classes with some of the best conducting mentors, including Mark Gibson, Gustav Meier, Marin Alsop, Larry Livingston, Robert Baldwin, John Barnett, John Farrer, and Achim Holub. He obtained his Masters Degree in Conducting from the University of Southern California (USC), where he was given the Conducting Department Award in 2003. In 2009, he began his Doctoral Studies in Orchestral Conducting at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music under Mark Gibson. He has also played as bassist for the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra. Olivier was invited to the California Conductors Institute several times. In 2009, Mr. Ochanine was among a handful of conductors nationally to be invited by Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop to conduct in the Cabrillo Music Festival in Santa Cruz, California and to participate in a conducting workshop. He has also been a participant in the Cincinnati College-Conservatory's conducting workshops. He has been regular guest conductor for the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra (China), and has also led many orchestras that include the Cincinnati College-Conservatory Orchestras, Budapest MAV Symphony Orchestra, Gyor Philharmonic Orchestra, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Virtuosi Italiani, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra.