Eva Ollikainen is a frequent guest conductor at numerous nordic orchestras, where she has worked with orchestras like the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Copenhagen Phil, Iceland Symphony and Finnish Radio and Lahti Symphony, among others. Her recent highlights include concerts with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, LSO, Brussels and Pannon Philharmonic orchestras, and Estonian and Lithuanian State Symphony orchestras. Ollikainen has also conducted at the Semperoper Dresden, the Kennedy Center Opera House, the Royal Stockholm Opera and the Finnish National Opera. In 2010 she made her debut at Philharmonie Berlin with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. This season will bring Ollikainen back to Semperoper Dresden for two different productions, the Nutcracker and a premiere of a triple bill ballet. She will also return to the Royal Stockholm Opera where she has been a frequent guest conductor to conduct a re-premiere of the Magic flute, and she will make her debut at the Gothenburg Opera with Carmen. Symphonic concerts will bring Ollikainen to a debut with Kristiansand symphony orchestra in Norway, and return visits to Tapiola sinfonietta, Nordic chamber orchestra, Västerås sinfonietta and Jönköping sinfonietta, among others. She will also be recording with Turku Philharmonic and Västerås sinfonietta. Ollikainen earned her master’s degree in conducting from the Sibelius Academy in her native Finland studying under Prof. Leif Segerstam and Prof. Jorma Panula, where she has been delighted to return to as a guest teacher. She also holds a master’s degree in piano performance from the same academy. Having won the international Jorma Panula conducting competition in 2003, she was invited to the conductors’ academy of the Allianz cultural foundation, where she had the opportunity to work with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Kurt Masur, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra and Christoph von Dohnányi. In 2006, Ollikainen was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood Music Center where she was supervised by Bernard Haitink, Herbert Blomstedt and James Levine. Ollikainen was awarded the Hulda Paulo prize for accomplished young musicians in 2009.