Jonathan Nott
Jonathan Nott took up the post of Principal Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in January 2000. Since his appointment, he has taken the orchestra regularly on tour – to South America, Russia, Japan and the USA and perfomed at prominent festivals such as Salzburg, Edinburgh and the London Proms. Jonathan Nott renewed his contract with the orchestra in March 2006 extending his term as Principal Conductor through to the 2009/10 season.
In 2007 Jonathan Nott appears as “Artiste Étoile” at the Lucerne Festival where he will give four performances with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra as Orchestra in Residence in repertoire ranging from Ligeti’s Requiem to Wagner’s Das Rheingold.
This Residency follows the orchestra’s highly acclaimed 2005 Edinburgh Festival Residency in which Jonathan Nott and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra combined challenging and interesting programming which has since become their hallmark.
British born, Nott read Music at Cambridge, studied flute and singing in Manchester and conducting in London. In 1988 he made his conducting debut at the Opera Festival in Battignano, and was appointed Kapellmeister at Frankfurt Opera in the following year.
In 1991 he was appointed first Kapellmeister at the Hessian National Theater Wiesbaden and he went on to become interim Chief Music Director for the 1995/96 season. During that time he conducted an extensive repertoire of opera, ballet and musicals, including all the major works of Mozart, Verdi and Puccini and his first complete Ring Cycle. Simultaneously he began a close relationship with Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt. In 1998 he went on to become Music Director of the Lucerne Theatre and Principal Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra.
Since the mid-nineties Jonathan Nott has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras that include the New Nork and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Tonhalle Zurich, NDR Hamburg, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, London and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras and the Orchestre de Paris. He has worked with the Berlin Philharmonic, with whom he recorded the complete orchestral works – including the Requiem – of György Ligeti for Warner Classics. Both recordings have received critical acclaim.
A great champion of contemporary music, Nott has given world premieres of major works by composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann and Aribert Reimann and, together with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, has premiered new works by Jörg Widmann, Bruno Mantovani and Mark-Anthony Turnage. In August 2000 he became Principal Conductor of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, and in 2004 its Chief Guest Conductor.
In 2006 Jonathan Nott appeared as guest conductor with both the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics as well as the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo. He additionally made his debut with the Philharmonia in London. Upcoming guest conducting engagements include performances with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic at the Wien Modern Festival.
This season saw the completion of Bamberg’s highly-acclaimed recordings for Tudor Records of the complete symphonies of Schubert with the release of Symphony no. 8 (The Great). Further releases in 2007 on Tudor are Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (released August 31st) and Mahler Symphony no. 1 (will be released later this season).
