Andris Nelsons

Andris Nelsons has earned recognition for his commanding leadership in both symphonic and operatic settings, where his interpretive clarity spans an expansive repertoire. His podium work has encompassed Puccini at the Metropolitan Opera, Wagner at the Bayreuth Festival, and Stravinsky with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, consistently earning approval from audiences and reviewers. He currently serves as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. During 2022 he directed the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in the next release of its Bruckner symphony cycle for Deutsche Grammophon.

Born in Riga, Latvia, on November 18, 1978, Nelsons grew up in a musical household; his parents and stepfather all performed, prompting him to begin piano lessons in childhood before switching to trumpet at age twelve. He subsequently joined his mother’s early-music group as a singer and performed as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra. Following initial training in Latvia, he pursued conducting studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory under Alexander Titov and, in 2002, commenced private lessons with Mariss Jansons. His symphonic programs regularly feature substantial selections by Mozart, Mahler, and Shostakovich, while his operatic choices center on Wagner and Puccini alongside works by Bizet, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss.

Nelsons has appeared with orchestras across Europe, North America, and Japan. He held the post of principal conductor at the Latvian National Opera from 2003 to 2007 and simultaneously served as chief conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie from 2006 to 2009. Regular engagements in Britain began in 2007, leading to his appointment that September as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a role he maintained through the 2014–2015 season. His Metropolitan Opera debut occurred in 2009 with Puccini’s Turandot; the following year he made his Bayreuth Festival debut leading Wagner’s Lohengrin, after having presented the same opera in concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. A widely admired account of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 2011 constituted Nelsons’ first appearances both at that venue and with the Boston ensemble. In 2014 he was appointed the Boston Symphony’s fifteenth music director following several seasons of guest conducting; four years later he became the twenty-first Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.

Although he maintains an exclusive recording agreement with Deutsche Grammophon, Nelsons has also released recordings on Decca and Orfeo. Critical praise has continued for his ongoing projects, notably the Shostakovich symphony series with the Boston Symphony and the Bruckner cycle, paired with Wagner excerpts, with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In 2020 both orchestras extended his contracts, the Boston Symphony through 2025 and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig through 2027. That same year Nelsons led the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in a Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bruckner’s First and Fifth Symphonies coupled with the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.