Ragnar Bohlin began his tenure as Director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in March 2007. Under his leadership, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. The recording, for SFS Media, garnered three 2010 Grammy® awards, including for Best Choral Performance.
Prior to his appointment at the San Francisco Symphony, Bohlin served as choirmaster of Stockholm’s Maria Magdalena Church, leading the Maria Magdalena Motet Choir and the Maria Vocal Ensemble, in addition to directing Stockholm’s KFUM Chamber Choir. With these ensembles, Bohlin appeared regularly on Swedish radio, toured internationally, and won numerous prizes in international competitions. In 2006 Bohlin was awarded the prestigious Johannes Norrby Medal for expanding the frontiers of Swedish choral music making. Bohlin has worked with The Swedish Radio Choir, The Ericson Chamber Choir, the Royal Philharmonic Choir, and the Opera Choir of Stockholm. He has prepared choruses for some of the world’s foremost conductors, including Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt, Valery Gergiev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Alan Gilbert. In October 2007, Bohlin conducted the world premiere of Fredrik Sixten’s new Requiem, featuring choir, orchestra, and two soloists, which was broadcast on Swedish Public Radio. The Swedish Radio Choir toured the U.S. with Bohlin conducting in spring 2010 to great critical acclaim, and in June 2010, Bohlin made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. In 2011, he conducted Bach's B-minor mass and Handel’s Messiah with the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, and appeared as guest conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in performances of Bach’s Magnificat and Pärt’s Te Deum. In 2012 he was guest conductor with the Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia and the Madrid Choral Society for performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah and in October 2012 will conduct Sixten’s Requiem with the Swedish Radio Choir and the Nordic Chamber Orchestra to be broadcast on Swedish Public Radio.
In 2007, the Maria Vocal Ensemble, under Bohlin’s direction, released a CD titled Shimmer, of new jazz music by composer/pianist Elise Einarsdotter with lyrics by great poets including E.E. Cummings and featuring special guest musicians Rigmor Gustafsson and Lena Willemark. In October 2008 Bohlin recorded a CD called Visions and Non Thoughts with trombonist/composer Christian Lindberg and the Swedish Radio Choir. Also in 2008, two other albums Bohlin conducted were released, one featuring Sixten’s Saint Mark Passion, and a second, Mysterium, featuring mainly a cappella music.
Bohlin is on the conducting faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and previously has taught at the Royal Academy in Stockholm. In February 2008 he was a visiting professor at Indiana University, and in 2010 at Miami University. Bohlin holds Master’s degrees in organ performance and conducting and a postgraduate degree in conducting from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. Bohlin studied conducting with renowned choir director Eric Ericson, voice with the great Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda, piano with Peter Feuchtwanger in London on a British Council scholarship, and through a Sweden-America Foundation scholarship he visited choruses throughout the United States. He has also appeared as an oratory tenor. He assumed the role of Artistic Director for renaissance vocal ensemble Chalice Consort in September 2012.