Jonathan Nott, who was born in 1962 in Solihull, near Birmingham, read music at Cambridge University and went on to study flute, singing, and conducting. His career began as a co-repetiteur at the National Opera Studio in London. In 1988 he was engaged by Frankfurt Opera, taking on a position three years later as first Kapellmeister at the Hessian State Theater in Wiesbaden, where he became interim Chief Music Director in the 1995-96 season. There he conducted a wide-ranging repertoire of opera, ballet, and musicals, ncluding all the major works of Mozart, Verdi and Puccini and his first complete Ring cycle. In 1996 he moved on to the Lucerne Theatre, where he served as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra for four seasons. Since 2000 Jonathan Nott has held the position of Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony. He has made guest appearances with his orchestra at all the eminent European musical centers, including the Salzburg Festival and the Edinburgh Festival, and also in Russia, Japan, China, South America, and the United States. As a guest conductor, Nott has collaborated with many famous orchestras, including the Berlin and Munich Philharmonics, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich. Jonathan Nott is a great champion of contemporary music and has served as head of the Ensemble Intercontemporain (2000–04) and has conducted the Ensemble Modern. He has led world premieres of works by Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough, Jörg Widmann, Bruno Mantovani, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. He has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in the complete orchestral works of György Ligeti. In 2007 Jonathan Nott as a star artist of the Lucerne Festival.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on August 24, 1996 conducting the Requiem of Hans Werner Henze and the monodrama Kassandra by Michael Jarrell. Jonathan Nott’s last appearance here was as a star artist in summer of 2007, including numerous concert appearances.