Oliver Dohnányi was born in 1955 in Prague. He studied at the Music Academy in Prague under Václav Neumann, after which he went to Vienna to complete his studies at the Hoschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. In 1979, he was appointed conductor of the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava). He was there for seven years, and then joined the Slovak National Theatre Opera Orchestra as principal conductor, while also conducting the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in Bratislava.

In 1993, he was named principal conductor of the Opera of the Prague National Theatre, and toured with them from 1995 to 1997. Since then, he has conducted the Capella Istropolitana and the English National Opera, and has appeared as a guest conductor with the Yomiuri – Nippon Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the National Symphony Orchestra of Portugal, the Northern Philharmonic Leeds, and the Irish National Symphony Orchestra, among many others. In 2002, he conducted and recorded three world-première performances of works by Marian Budos.