Biography
Canadian oboist Aleh Remezau has been praised for his “sensuous and exuberant” performances (The Millbrook Independent) and “incredibly expressive” playing (Vancouver Sun), and for a sound of “plaintive splendour” (Toronto Star). He is Principal Oboe of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec and the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, and a member of the orchestra of The National Ballet of Canada.
Mr. Remezau has performed numerous times on oboe and English horn with the New York Philharmonic, under conductors including Jaap van Zweden, Manfred Honeck, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Neeme Järvi, and can be heard on the orchestra’s Grammy-nominated recording of Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 4 under Alan Gilbert. He has appeared as guest Principal Oboe with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and The National Ballet of Canada, and has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He is a longtime regular with Toronto’s Esprit Orchestra, where he has played every position in the oboe section, including principal oboe and solo English horn.
In 2026, Mr. Remezau joined the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Canada’s oldest symphony orchestra, as Principal Oboe, and now makes his home in Québec City. He has been Principal Oboe of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra since 2020, appearing as soloist in the Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto, J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin and Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, and as a featured musician in the orchestra’s video broadcasts of Mozart’s Oboe Quartet and Tomasi’s Évocations for solo oboe.
His relationship with The National Ballet of Canada spans many of the company’s most celebrated productions, including Giselle, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, first as Guest Principal Oboe and now as a permanent member of the orchestra’s oboe section.
Chamber music is central to Mr. Remezau’s career, above all as a member of the Poulenc Trio. With the Trio he has toured across Canada, the United States and South America, performing in Peru, Uruguay, Chile and Colombia, as well as in Spain, where the ensemble appeared at the Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao, one of the world’s most celebrated chamber music series. In 2026 the Trio toured China, including a residency at Yunnan Arts University in Kunming. Deeply committed to expanding the repertoire for oboe, bassoon and piano, the Trio has commissioned works by American composer Viet Cuong, whose music The New York Times has called “wildly inventive,” and has released recordings of Poulenc’s songs arranged for its distinctive instrumentation. The New York Times praised the ensemble’s “elegant rendition” of Piazzolla’s tangos, and The Washington Post commended its “intriguing and beautifully played program” for its “convincing elegance, near effortless lightness, and grace.” The Trio’s concerts have been featured on American Public Media’s Performance Today, and its recordings are broadcast around the world.
Mr. Remezau is also a member of The Happenstancers, an adventurous Toronto-based chamber ensemble featuring “an obscene amount of talent” (The WholeNote). With the ensemble he has brought “considerable virtuosity” to works for oboe and English horn by Oliver Knussen and Elliott Carter, in concerts hailed as “bizarrely eclectic, …very intriguing and rewarding” (John Gilks, operaramblings). He has performed at festivals including Ottawa Chamberfest, Scotia Festival, Sweetwater Music Festival and Big Lake Festival, and as a pit musician in Wicked on Broadway, in Mirvish’s production of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, and at the Shaw Festival.
Aleh Remezau began his musical studies on piano, and his study of the oboe at fifteen. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Manhattan School of Music, and an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West and Domaine Forget. He was an inaugural member of The Orchestra Now at Bard College, performing at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and The Metropolitan Museum, and at Austria’s Grafenegg Festival in 2018. He has taught oboe as a sessional faculty member at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music.
