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The Music! The Castle! The Memories!

My name is Erik Eino Ochsner, and I am an orchestra conductor who works in classical, opera and film-with-live orchestra formats. My mother’s family is from Viipuri, and she was born in Helsinki. I am now a proud dual citizen of Finland and the USA. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, an actress named Soili Poutiainen performed on stage, in films and commercials, and she was as an evening television hostess introducing the program lineup. She is my mother.

Growing up, I studied piano and flute, I sang, I also worked a lot in the theater doing technical work, building sets and designing lights. For three summers, I volunteered backstage at the Indianapolis Shakespeare Festival often running lights and sound, and I popped popcorn for the snack table, and then I ran to call PLACES!! My mom felt it was very important for her two sons to spend one summer in Finland alone, with mom and dad, to establish our own roots with Finland. My brother spent his summer going to bars and messing around. That wasn’t my thing!

In 1986, while on a family vacation in Finland, we visited Savonlinna, and saw a rehearsal of Aida while taking a tour of Olavinlinna. Fireworks went off in my head and heart. I told my mom, wow, if I could somehow work here for a summer, THAT would be dream summer in Finland. And it came true. My mom contacted an old director friend, who knew the director of the festival! In 1987, I was allowed to be an “Assistentti” which meant I went to all rehearsals and performances and assisted anyone and everyone! First, it started out like any intern, getting some copies made, getting someone coffee, then backstage, Oh hey, I forgot something on the other side of the stage, which meant I had to crawl through cannon holes, down ladders, across a courtyard, up another ladder, through another cannon hole to fetch my assignment – and I LOVED IT. It was an incredible summer with performances of Aida, Kuningas lähtee Ranskaan (The King Goes Forth to France), Taikahuilu (The Magic Flute). The Estonian National Opera was the visiting guest company with performances of Carmen and Khovanshchina. At the end of the summer, the combined forces performed Mahler Symphony No. 8 “Symphony of a Thousand.”

My Life Was Changed Period.

In the early 2000s, via social media, I reconnected with my host family in Savonlinna (Leila, Keith and Pia), and also my best friend (Janne) from that summer, who continued to work in the theater, eventually as the Head of Production for Aleksanterin Teatteri in Helsinki. We stayed in touch, shared stories, shared memories, and I have visited them several times over the years. While visiting Finland in 2024, Janne mentioned to me that he would be designing the lights for a performance of Viimeiset kiusaukset (The Last Temptations) and asked me if I would come – and I immediately said OF COURSE/TOTTA KAI!

Fast forward to July-August 2025, I spent 14 days in Finland and drove 1260 miles! I saw 2 operas in Savonlinna, several friends and family, had sauna in 4 different locations including one night off the coast of Porvoo while staying in an AirBnB on an island reachable only by boat!

Being back in Savonlinna was magical, bringing back so many memories. Great to connect with so many friends and my “chosen family.” The Kokkonen opera was very impressive, I’m glad I saw it. Incredible performances. I, personally, found the story line a little hard to follow, but nonetheless in opera, we must often suspend disbelief! Purcell’s Fairy Queen is defined as a masque, not an opera. It’s a series of arias which are strung together with a loosely fitting story line. It’s really up to the director of the opera to be creative and make a convincing story, and in Savonlinna, this was a huge success. It was performed by a visiting company from Spain with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra. Both performances were very well attended and incredibly moving – the sets, lights, costumes, orchestra, singers, and of course sitting in the middle of a 550 year old castle, Olavinlinna was the “cherry on the cake.”

I am personally looking forward to next August 2026 when I will be in Kuopio to conduct two performances of Amadeus in Concert, film with live orchestra. You will see the entire film projected over the symphony orchestra, the sound effects, dialogue and in this case the soloists voices will all be heard from the original track, but we will be performing all of the orchestral music, along with chorus and solo piano LIVE synchronized to the film!