Conductor and pianist Oliver Hagen played piano on Third Coast Percussion’s 2017 Grammy-winning album, Reich: Mallet Quartet, Sextet, Nagoya Marimbas & Music for Pieces of Wood. 

 

Hagen is currently on faculty at the Juilliard Preparatory Division and Newark Academy. He has worked as a guest conductor with the Grossman Ensemble at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition. He was formerly Assistant Conductor of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, appointed by Pierre Boulez. Hagen had the good fortune to perform under Boulez’s direction towards the end of his life, playing Solo Piano 1 in Boulez's own work, Répons. This will always be one of Hagen’s most cherished memories.

 

As a pianist in Ensemble Signal for over fifteen years, Hagen has collaborated with Steve Reich, recording the composer's Radio Rewrite for Harmonia Mundi, and premiering the Reich/Richter in a two-month run celebrating the opening of the Shed in NYC. Also as a member of the ensemble, Hagen has appeared at venues such as Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center Festival, Library of Congress, Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, and the Big Ears Festival in Tennessee. Hagen conducted the ensemble in Peter and the Wolf  at the Guggenheim, with fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi narrating. 

 

Hagen has finished the first draft of his new textbook on conducting, entitled One Note at a Time. Writing this book has been motivated by his passion for teaching, his professional conducting work, his master's degree in Music Education at Hofstra University, and his doctoral degree in conducting with Brad Lubman from the Eastman School of Music.

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Hagen made his acting début co-starring in the feature film On a String, written and directed by his sister, Isabel Hagen. The film won best screenplay at the 2025 Tribeca Festival.