Kent Nagano

Kent Nagano, who was born in Berkeley, California, in 1951, studied at the University of California in Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University, gaining practical experience at San Francisco Opera. He was appointed Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in 1978 and assisted Seiji Ozawa in the world premiere of Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise in Paris in 1983. His international breakthrough came in 1984 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, for which he received the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award. Nagano was appointed Music Director of the Opéra de Lyon in 1989 (until 1998) and served as Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra from 1991 to 2000 and as Principal Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000 to 2006. He then became Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (2006-20) and General Music Director at the Bavarian Staatsoper (2006-13) and has held the same position at the Hamburg Staatsoper since 2015; the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra appointed him its honorary conductor in June 2023. Nagano has guest conducted many major orchestras and has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles and San Francisco Operas, La Scala in Milan, Berlin Staatsoper, and the Salzburg Festival. He led the premieres of Dusapin’s Il Viaggio, Dante in Aix-en-Pro-vence in 2022 and of Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone in Hamburg in 2023. Kent Nagano was appointed Honorary Conductor of Concerto Köln in 2019: with this ensemble and the Dresden Festival Orchestra, he is conducting the ongoing historically informed project “The Wagner Cycles.” His recording of Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin received a Grammy Award. His book Classical Music: Expect the Unexpected, which makes the case for classical music’s relevance, appeared in 2014; 10 Lessons of My Life, a book about life-changing encounters, followed in 2021.

Lucerne Festival debut on 1 September 1998, when Kent Nagano conducted the Hallé Orchestra and the Arnold Schönberg Choir in Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise.

July 2023