Austrian conductor Alexis Hauser was born in Vienna and graduated with distinction from Hans Swarowsky's masterclass 1970 (Vienna Musikuniversität) as well as from mastercourses with Franco Ferrara (Accademia Chigiana Siena 1969) and Herbert von Karajan (Salzburg Sommerakademie 1970).
His conducting debut took place with the Vienna Symphony in 1973 whereupon Seiji Ozawa invited him to Tanglewood for the summer 1974. After having been awarded the Koussevitzky prize by the Boston Symphony, he debuted as guestconductor with the Atlanta Symphony and at the New York City Opera in 1975.
Since then Hauser is a frequent guest conductor of major orchestras in Europe and America, such as Vienna Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Radio Philharmonic Hilversum, Radio Symphony Berlin, South West German Radio Symphony, Tchaikovsky Symphony Moscow, Orchestre National Toulouse; Bruckner orchestra Linz, Czech Philharmonic Brno, Enescu Philharmonic Bucharest, Budapest Symphony, the Philharmonics of Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Krakow as well as the major symphonies in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Minnesota, Rochester, Montreal, Toronto and Mexico City; Hauser appeared came also from Chicago's Grant Park Festival and Opera Midwest as well as from Finland, Norway and Iceland. Recently he made his Swiss conducting debut with the Zürich Opera House in the world premiere of the Opera “Kalkül” by Werner Schulze (music) and Carl Djerassi (libretto).
His first permanent position as music director came from Orchestra London Canada which was followed by his invitation to become principal guest conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic with whom he made several recordings and a video of Mahler's Symphony Nr. 1 which was transmitted throughout Europe. In Tokyo he recorded Messiaen’s “Turangalïla” and Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, in Moscow Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, and in Cracow, Poland, Dvorák’s “Requiem”. Since 1999 he is also closely associated with the Ensemble Wiener Collage composed of members of the Vienna Philharmonic which he conducts at the Vienna Arnold Schönberg Center.
As Director of the McGill Symphony Orchestra in Montreal he received already after his inaugural season 2001/2 invitations to appear at the International Festival of Lanaudiere and also in New York at Carnegie Hall. The Gazette praised Hauser's performance of Verdi's Falstaff as a revelation and listed his interpretation of Mahler's Tenth Symphony (which was released meanwhile in public by McGill Records) as one of the top 10 of 2002 Classical Music Performances. In 2004, Hauser performed the Canadian premiere of the original version of Mahler's Das klagende Lied.; in 2005 he revived, together with Stage Director François Racine, Harry Somer’s Opera Louis Riel in an Opera McGill production at Montreal’s Place des Arts which was awarded the Prix Opus “Événement musical de l’année” by the Conseil Québécois de la Musique.