Collon’s plans in Helsinki in 23/24 include a focus on Richard Strauss, a residency with Sir George Benjamin, as well as plans to premiere an unprecedented 13 new works. He also leads the Aurora Orchestra in their residencies at Kings Place and at the Southbank, where they have reinvented the concert format with their ‘Orchestral Theatre’ Series. Together they appear regularly at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Cologne Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and festivals such as Bremen, Rheingau, Schleswig Holstein, Gstaad, and the BBC Proms where they perform every year in their hugely popular memorized performances.
Collon returns this season to conduct the Orchestre National de France, Dresden Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Danish National Symphony Orchestra. He will also conduct the Barcelona Symphony and will make his debut with the Munich Philharmonic in 2024 and WDR Symphony Orchestra in 2025.
Collon has conducted over 250 new works, including the UK or world premieres of works by Unsuk Chin, Brett Dean, Phillip Glass, Colin Matthews, Anna Meredith, Nico Muhly, Olivier Messiaen, Krzysztof Penderecki, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Judith Weir, and Du Yun. He is a regular guest of the Bamberg Symphony and BBC Philharmonic orchestras, the latter of whom he will conduct at the 2024 BBC Proms, and has also conducted DSO Berlin, ORF Radio-Symphnonieorchester Wien, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Minnesota Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony and Chamber Orchestra of Europe amongst many others.
His first CD release with the Finnish Radio Symphony in Spring 2022 (Sibelius on Ondine) received 5-star reviews in Finland and internationally; in Autumn 2022 they released a CD of works by Thomas Adès which won a Diapason d'Or, and they have since released two further CDs of works by Wennäkoski and Bacewicz. Past recordings have included discs for Deutsche Grammophon and Warner with the Aurora Orchestra, with whom he won the Echo Klassik Award for ‘Klassik Ohne Grenzen’ in 2015; and discs with the Danish Radio Symphony, Philharmonia and Hallé orchestras.
Opera productions have included Peter Grimes and Don Giovanni for Oper Koeln, Magic Flute at English National Opera, Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream at Welsh National Opera, Rape of Lucretia for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and Turn of the Screw at the Aldeburgh Festival with Aurora Orchestra. Born in London, Nicholas is a violist, pianist and organist by training, and studied as Organ Scholar at Clare College, Cambridge.
2023/24 season / 471 words. Not to be altered without permission.