OVID YOUNG , Artist-in-Residence
at Olivet Nazarene University
Pianist, organist, composer and conductor, Ovid Young is one of the most versatile musicians before the concert public today. More than three decades of concertizing have taken him to every major music center in the United States as well as to England, Germany, Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Israel, Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Denmark, India, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Canada Mexico and the Caribbean.
His performances with orchestras (in addition to extensive work with recording orchestras in the studios of Hollywood, New York, London, Nashville, Chicago and Dallas) have included the English Chamber Orchestra, the Danish Radio Symphony, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Bern Symphony, the English Symphony, the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, London’s Southbank Sinfonia, the Florida Philharmonic and the symphonies of Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Denver, Phoenix, Nashville, Fort Worth, Birmingham, Jackson, Oklahoma City and Plano --- among numerous others.
For ten seasons, from 1974-1984, Ovid was Music Director of the Kankakee Valley Symphony Orchestra.
Ovid Young’s formal musical studies took place at Olivet Nazarene University, at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and at the University of Illinois. A composer of orchestral scores for several feature-length films and a widely-published creator of choral music for church choirs, he is remembered by many for his two decades of touring and recording as the pianist/arranger/conductor for the renowned operatic singing duo of Robert Hale & Dean Wilder.
Since 1971, he has played some 4000 concerts as half of the celebrated duo-piano team of Nielson & Young with Texas pianist Stephen Nielson. Nielson & Young are on the International Roster of Steinway Artists, and they began their long and distinguished concert collaboration when both were serving on ONU’s music faculty in the 1970s.
As an organist, Dr. Young has played many important organs here and abroad including the famed Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia and the instruments at Ft. Lauderdale’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church; Colorado Springs’ U.S. Air Force Academy Chapel; Ft. Worth’s Broadway Baptist Church; Southern California’s Crystal Cathedral ; Dallas’ Meyerson Symphony Center; England’s Coventry and Chester Cathedrals, Switzerland’s Bern Munster, etc.