Ragnar Bohlin currently serves as organist and choir director at the Maria Church in Helsingborg, Sweden. There he directs Vox Mariae and the male ensemble Profundo. He is also the artistic director of the award winning Lund Vocal Ensemble.
Guest conducting engagements have brought Mr. Bohlin to many ensembles around the world, such as the Swedish Radio Choir, with who he has recorded three CDs, The BBC Singers, The Ericson Chamber Choir, Chanticleer and The Sao Paulo, Edmonton, Stavanger, Helsingborg and Malmö Symphonies. In June 2010 he conducted Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” in Carnegie Hall. In 2019 he conducted Bach’s Mass in B-minor in Shanghai and The Formosa Singers in Taiwan. In 2023 he conducted Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Helsingborg Symphony.
As Chorus Director for the San Francisco Symphony Chorus between 2007 and 2021, Mr. Bohlin prepared the chorus for some of the world’s greatest conductors, such as Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt, Charles Dutoit, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Alan Gilbert. He also conducted them in such pieces as Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B Minor, and Poulenc’s Figure Humaine. His outstanding was recognized with a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. He was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for the recording of Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna in 2024. He was also awarded with the Michael Korn and Johannes Norrby awards.
Between 2014 and 2020 Ragnar Bohlin founded and conducted the professional chamber choir Cappella SF. With them he recorded four CDs, “Light of Gold”, “Facing West: Choral Music of Conrad Susa and David Conte”, “Timeless”, and “Mass Transmission, music by Mason Bates”.
Before his appointment in San Francisco he was choirmaster of Stockholm’s Maria Magdalena Church and the Stockholm Philharmonic Choir, and appeared regularly on Swedish radio with the Maria Magdalena Motet Choir and the Maria Vocal Ensemble. Mr. Bohlin toured internationally with his Swedish choirs—the KFUM Chamber Choir, the Maria Magdalena Motet Choir and the Maria Vocal Ensemble — earning prizes in international competitions and such distinctions as the prestigious Johannes Norrby Medal in 2006 for expanding the frontiers of Swedish choral music making.
Mr. Bohlin studied conducting with Jorma Panula and the legendary choir director Eric Ericson, piano with Peter Feuchtwanger in London on a British Council scholarship, and singing with the great Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda. Mr. Bohlin has been on the faculty of the Stockholm and San Francisco Conservatories of Music and has been a guest professor at the Miami, Michigan and Indiana Universities. He has lead master classes across the world, including Italy, Taiwan, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
In July of 2024 Bohlin will revisit and hold master classes at the international conductor conference ANDCI in Assissi, Italy.
In August 2024 Bohlin will record a CD with his male ensemble Profundo.