Maestro Richard Owen, native New Yorker, is an organist, conductor, pianist, singer, harpsichordist and educator. Owen has been music director of various churches in New York, Connecticut and Florida and has enjoyed an international career which has brought him to the foremost venues of Europe, South America and the United States (Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine).
Owen started piano at age five and soon began singing at the famed Metropolitan Opera, NYC Opera, and Sante Fe Opera. Under the baton of James Levine, Owen was a boy soloist and sang alongside luminaries such as Luciano Pavarotti, Renata Scotto and Placido Domingo.
Together with his wife, Kate, Mo. Owen founded the orchestra, Camerata New York, which since 2000 has presented inspiring programs to sophisticated New York City audiences, and has collaborated with dancers from Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham, with film star, Alec Baldwin, as well as soloists from the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. For seven years, Camerata New York was resident orchestra of the beautiful St. Jean Baptiste Church on the Upper East Side.
Owen has extensive experience working with notable modern composers such as Paul Moravec, Michael Torke and Judge Richard Owen (his father and Federal Judge in the Southern District of NY). Judge Owen’s opera “Rain” received its world premiere at Lincoln Center, under Mo. Owen’s baton, was recorded on Albany Records, and featured his wife, Kate, as principal cellist and his mother, Lynn, former Metropolitan Opera soprano.
Maestro Owen was invited by Kurt Masur to conduct the New York Philharmonic in a “Reading” and later became a cover conductor there for Sir Colin Davis and Charles Dutoit.
He was also a conductor for several seasons at the German Opera on the Rhine (Düsseldorf, Germany), directed vocal ensembles for Netflix (Queen’s Gambit) and the film Worth (starring Michael Keaton), and has appeared in the TV series ‘Succession’. Owen was on the musical staff of Columbia University (Glee Club Music Director), Western Connecticut State University and was adjunct professor at St. John’s University (NYC). Mr. Owen has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Opera News, Newsday and on New York classical radio stations WQXR and WMNR as well as on Polish, Serbian and Mexican Radio and Television and SiriusXM. Owen graduated from Dartmouth College (BA in Government and Philosophy), received his Master’s from the Manhattan School of Music and continued post-graduate studies at the renowned University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria.