A native of Holland, Olav van Hezewijk is in his 24th year here at the Colorado Music Festival, where he has been a featured soloist on numerous occasions. He was appointed English Horn/Assistant Principal Oboe by Giora Bernstein and, in 2000, performed Arne Running’s Concertino for English Horn and String Orchestra with Bernstein’s successor, Michael Christie. More recently, Olav was engaged as part of a Hyperion label recording project with the English conductor David Hill and the Yale Schola Cantorum (part of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music) of the Brahms Requiem. The orchestration is a new arrangement by British organ scholar and composer Iain Farrington for flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, bass, and piano. Olav is known for his lyrical phrasing and dazzling technique and has “opened” many choral concerts at the Yale ISM with a concerto at the request of Yale choral conductor Marguerite Brooks.
In addition to being brought in for ISM performances, he is the requested principal oboe for concerts with the Yale Glee Club and its music director, Jeffrey Douma.
Following graduation from the Yale School of Music in 1984, Olav was a prize winner in the famed Gillet Double Reed Competition in Graz, Austria. He has made guest appearances with the Jupiter Symphony, China National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and I Musici Montreal. Olav is Principal Oboe of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, where he has performed the Mozart and Strauss oboe concertos and Francaix’s Flower Clock under the baton of music director William Boughton. He has made Connecticut his home because of its unique wealth of opportunities to perform and teach. Olav lives in Hamden with his wife of nearly thirty years, former Boulderite and CMF’s Second Oboe, Marta Boratgis. In addition to his musical path, Olav’s deepest pursuit in life is the study of Tibetan Buddhism.
