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 acclaimed discs of Sibelius, Lutosławski, Adès and Wennäkoski (winning the 2023 Gramophone Award for Best Contemporary Recording), with Richard Strauss, Elgar, Holst, and more Sibelius to come. Their 2024/25 concert season includes Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie and Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps as part of a Paris theme, and works by Finnish-American composer Lara Poe. Every concert is broadcast live on Finnish National TV.
Collon leads the Aurora Orchestra at the BBC Proms every year in their hugely popular memorised performances, this year Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, televised live. Aurora are Resident at Kings Place and at the Southbank Centre where they have reinvented the concert format with their ‘Orchestral Theatre’ Series. This season they tour to major German cities, and continue to appear regularly at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Cologne Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and festivals such as Bremen, Rheingau, Schleswig Holstein and Gstaad. They have recorded for Warner, winning the Echo Klassik Award for ‘Klassik Ohne Grenzen’ in 2015, and latterly for Deutsche Grammophon.
Collon debuted with the Dresden Staatskapelle in Spring 2024, and in 24/25 makes his first appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic and WDR Symphony, and returns to the DSO Berlin. He regularly conducts orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic (appearing at the BBC Proms with them in his second televised Prom this year), City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Danish National Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Dresden Philharmonic, and has also guested with Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Minnesota Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe among many others.
Collon has conducted over 250 new works, including the UK or world premieres of works by Unsuk Chin, Brett Dean, Phillip Glass, Colin Matthews, Anna Meredith, Nico Muhly, Olivier Messiaen, Krzysztof Penderecki, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Judith Weir, and Du Yun. Opera productions have included Peter Grimes and Don Giovanni for Oper Koeln, Magic Flute at English National Opera, Jonathan Harvey’s 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, Nicholas is a violist, pianist and organist by training, and studied as Organ Scholar at Clare College, Cambridge.
2024/25 season / 455 words. Not to be altered without permission.