Biography
Conductor
Nicholas Collon
Nicholas Collon is the founder and principal conductor of Aurora Orchestra and has been chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony since 2021. He was chief conductor of the Residentie Orkest The Hague from 2016–21, and was principal guest of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne from 2017–22. With the Finnish Radio Symphony, he has toured to the BBC Proms, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and to Germany and Estonia. Their expanding discography together for Ondine includes discs of Sibelius, Lutosławski, Adès, and Wennäkoski, which won the 2023 Gramophone Award for Best Contemporary Recording. Aurora Orchestra is in residence at Kings Place and the Southbank Centre, and has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and Warner, winning the Echo Klassik Award for Classical Without Borders in 2015.
Collon debuted with the Dresden Staatskapelle last spring, and this season appears with the Munich Philharmonic, WDR Symphony, and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He regularly conducts the BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Danish National Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Dresden Philharmonic, and has also guested with the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, among many others. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this program.
In opera, he has led Peter Grimes and Don Giovanni for Oper Köln, Magic Flute at English National Opera, Wagner Dream at Welsh National Opera, Rape of Lucretia for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and Turn of the Screw at the Aldeburgh Festival with Aurora Orchestra. Born in London, Collon is a violist, pianist, and organist by training, and studied at Clare College, Cambridge.
Collon debuted with the Dresden Staatskapelle last spring, and this season appears with the Munich Philharmonic, WDR Symphony, and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He regularly conducts the BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Danish National Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Dresden Philharmonic, and has also guested with the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, among many others. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this program.
In opera, he has led Peter Grimes and Don Giovanni for Oper Köln, Magic Flute at English National Opera, Wagner Dream at Welsh National Opera, Rape of Lucretia for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and Turn of the Screw at the Aldeburgh Festival with Aurora Orchestra. Born in London, Collon is a violist, pianist, and organist by training, and studied at Clare College, Cambridge.
