BIOGRAPHY OF KENT NAGANO
Kent Nagano has established an international reputation as one of the most insightful and visionary interpreters of both the operatic and symphonic repertoire. In September 2006, he became General Music Director of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich as well as Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
In April 2008, Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal released their first joint recording on Sony/Analekta. The double album, entitled Beethoven: Ideals of the French Revolution is devoted entirely to the music of Beethoven and includes the Fifth Symphony and The General, an original work that pays tribute to the Canadian humanist Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire and recounts the events that took place in Rwanda in 1994. One year after, Kent Nagano and the OSM released Mahler’s The Song of the Earth with tenor Klaus Florian Vogt and baritone Christian Gerhaher on Sony. Also in 2009, Analekta released a recording of works by contemporary composer Unsuk Chin featuring violinist Viviane Hagner. In February 2010 a recording of Beethoven's Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos by Kent Nagano, the OSM and pianist Till Fellner was released by ECM/Universal. In May 2010 Kent Nagano and the OSM recorded for Sony Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 as well as the incidental music to Beethoven’s Creatures of Prometheus in collaboration with the award winning Montreal writer Yann Martel, who wrote a new text for the Prometheus music.
Kent Nagano also leads the OSM in national and international outings and tours. The Orchestra offered in 2006 a concert at the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet, its first international concert with Kent Nagano. In April 2007 the OSM completed its first coast-to-coast Canadian tour, placed under the direction of Kent Nagano. They toured jointly in Japan and South Korea in Spring 2008 and in 2009 toured in Europe, for the first time in 10 years. In September 2008, Maestro Nagano and 7 OSM musicians visited several villages in Nunavik in Northern Quebec performing Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat narrated in local dialect.
Born in California, Kent Nagano maintains close connections with his home state and was Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2009. Since the end of the 2008/09 season he remains the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate and became in the 2007/08 season Founding Music Director of the new Berkeley Academy Ensemble.
Nagano’s early professional years were spent in Boston, working in the opera house and as assistant conductor to Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He played a key role in the world premiere of Messiaen’s opera Saint François d’Assise at the request of the composer. Nagano’s success in North America led to European appointments: Music Director of the Opéra National de Lyon (1988-1998), Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000) and Associate Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1990-1998). World premieres from these years included Bernstein’s A White House Cantata and operas by Peter Eötvös (Three Sisters), John Adams (The Death of Klinghoffer and El Niño) and Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin at the Salzburg Festival.
A very important period in Nagano’s career was his time as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000 to 2006. In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, Kent Nagano was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra, only the second recipient of this honour in their 60-year history.
Kent Nagano became the first Music Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003, having held the position of Principal Conductor for the previous two years. Productions there ranged from a series of Mozart operas to Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Tosca and Wagner’s Lohengrin and Parsifal. His work in other opera houses in recent seasons has included Shostakovich’s The Nose (Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin), Rimsky Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel (Châtelet, Paris), Hindemith’s Cardillac and Massenet’s Werther (Opéra National de Paris).
As a much sought-after guest conductor Kent Nagano has worked with most of the world’s finest orchestras. He has recorded for Erato, Teldec, Pentatone and Deutsche Grammophon as well as Analekta, Sony, ECM, Universal and Harmonia Mundi, winning Grammy awards for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with the Opéra National de Lyon, and Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra. The latter features Sophia Loren narrating Peter and the Wolf, and a new piece by Jean-Pascal Beintus, Wolf Tracks, narrated by Bill Clinton and introductory remarks provided by Mikhail Gorbachev.
For more information on Kent Nagano please visit:
http://www.kentnagano.com/
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