Sinfonia Spring Concert

The PRINCETON UNIVERSITY SINFONIA is a full symphony orchestra that unites eager, music-loving Princeton University undergraduate and graduate students, as well as community friends, to explore diverse symphonic repertory from four centuries. Its members are passionate musicians with diverse interests and backgrounds who come together for the rich and always compounding rewards of making music together and for others.

DR. RUTH OCHS has been conducting at Princeton University since 2002. Soon after beginning graduate studies in the Department of Music at Princeton, she took over directorship of the Princeton University Sinfonia and quickly steered its growth from a chamber orchestra into a full-size symphonic orchestra performing repertory from the baroque to the most recent. Today, the orchestra regularly features student soloists and premieres new compositions by Princeton University undergraduate composers. She also serves as Associate Conductor of the Princeton University Orchestra, and has led the ensemble in a variety of performances, including on
its tour of Spain in 2019. Off the podium, her work in the classroom and introducing concert programs puts into action her belief that performers and audiences alike benefit from a closer understanding of the materials and makers of a musical composition.

Passionate about nourishing and inspiring community and youth musicians, Dr. Ochs also shares her time with local musical initiatives in central New Jersey. She is now in her fifteenth season as conductor and music director of the Westminster Community Orchestra, with whom she has led successful opera gala performances, collaborates with youth ensembles from the Westminster Conservatory of Music, and organizes popular Halloween and holiday concerts. Musical outreach lies close to her heart, and she has taken small ensembles of Princeton University musicians to perform in Mercer County elementary schools. For several years she led Sinfonia students in mentoring local middle school instrumentalists participating in the Princeton University Pace Center’s Community House After School Academy.

Ruth Ochs holds degrees in music, orchestral conducting, and music history from Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Princeton University, respectively. As a Fulbright Scholar, she studied musicology at Humboldt Universität in Berlin, Germany, and, as a student of the Polish language, she studied at the Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Kraków, Poland. She holds the rank of senior lecturer in Princeton University’s Department of Music.