ERIK NIELSEN, NEW CHIEF CONDUCTOR OF THE BOS
El patronato de la BOS le ha nombrado Director Titular para las tres próximas temporadas.
At the meeting it held today, the Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga- Bilbao Symphony Orchestra Foundation Board has agreed to appoint Erik Nielsen chief conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra (BOS) for the next three seasons. (2015-16, 2016-17 & 2017-18)
When it came to hiring him, the BOS board members have taken into account not only the excellent performance that Nielsen as a conductor has got out of the orchestra and the fine understanding that he has reached with its members, but also his outstanding musical qualities and artistic renown.
Erik Nielsen will be joining the BOS in September 2015, and will conduct between seven and eight symphony programmes per season, although it looks likely that (due to commitments he has already made) his presence may be somewhat more restricted during the first season.
Born in Iowa (USA) in 1977, he studied orchestral conducting at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and obtained his degree as a double-major in oboe and harp at the Juilliard School in New York.
He was a harpist in the Berlin Philharmonic as a member of its Orchestral Academy.
As a soloist, he has played under conductors such as Abbado, Barenboim, Conlon, Dutoit, Janssons, Levine, Maazel, Mackerras, Masur, Nagano, Previn, Rattle, Salonen, Slatkin, Tilson Thomas & Zinman.
He joined the Frankfurt Opera in 2002, and took up the position of Kapellmeister from 2008 to 2012.
At the Frankfurt Opera his repertoire included The Marriage of Fígaro, The Abduction from the Seraglio, La Clemenza di Tito, Tosca, Angels in America, Curlew River, La bohème, Lucia di Lammermoor, Lohengrin, Simplicius Simplicissimus and the German premiere of Reimann’s Medea.
Starting in the 2016/17 season he will taking up the position of music director at the Basel Theatre.
Erik Nielsen has conducted the Frankfurt and Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestras, as well as works by Pintscher, Rihm and Saariaho at the Heidelberg Spring Festival.
In 2005-6, Nielsen was Christoph Eschenbach’s assistant on the production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle directed by Bob Wilson at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris.
In summer 2007 he conducted symphony and chamber concerts at Tanglewood, and assisted James Levine on Don Carlos. He returned to Tanglewood in 2008 for Weill’s Mahagonny.
In January 2009 he made his debut in London with The Magic Flute for the English National Opera. In September 2009 he was awarded a scholarship by the USA Solti Foundation.
In March 2010 he made his opera debut in the USA with Ariadne auf Naxos for the Boston Lyric Opera, followed by The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
He conducted the Ensemble Moderne in Frankfurt and in Brussels (Ars musica Festival), and led the Offenbachiade project, with the performance of the original orchestrations of six operas by Offenbach at the Frankfurt Opera.
His recent and future commitments include The Magic Flute at the Rome Opera, Simplicius Simplicissimus, Henze’s Gisela and We come to the River, and Lohengrin at the Semper Oper in Dresden; La Traviata at the Opera Hedeland Festival in Denmark and at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin; Così fan tutte at the Sao Carlos Theatre ; Reimann’s Lear at the Malmö Opera; Otello and Ariane et Barbe-Bleue in Frankfurt, and concerts with the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra in Lisbon, the Strasbourg Philharmonic, World Youth Symphony Orchestra at the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Northern Sinfonia in the United Kingdom, and Mozart’s Requiem at the Rome Opera.
As for the BOS, he conducted it for the first time in Bilbao in the ABAO opera season (“Die Totestadt” by E. Korngold) on the 21st, 24th, 27th and 30th of April 2012, which was a great success with the critics and the audience.
He also conducted the extraordinary concert held at San Vicente Church, on the 21st of March this year with works by P.I. Tchaikovsky and W.A. Mozart.
He has recently once again conducted the BOS on three occasions, twice in Bilbao (20th and 21st of November), and once in Santander (22nd of November), in concerts that included works by B. Martinu, E. Elgar and A. Dvorák.