Appointments
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Music Director
Gewandhauskapellmeister, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Biography
"One of the most exciting and sought-after conductors working today..." (The Guardian)
Andris Nelsons is Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. These two positions – combined with his leadership of a pioneering alliance between the two institutions – have firmly established the Grammy Award-winning conductor as one of the most sought-after artists today.
Nelsons began his tenure in Boston with the 2014/15 season and in Leipzig in February 2018. A landmark moment in the orchestral alliance between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig – which includes joint programming, commissions, recordings, touring projects, a musicians’ exchange, and educational initiatives – occurred in May 2025 with the Shostakovich Festival Leipzig, a historic celebration of the composer’s complete symphonic oeuvre. Nelsons conducted 13 of the 15 symphonies, including a groundbreaking joint performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony with both orchestras, as well as concertos and the opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”. He also led a Festival Orchestra made up of young musicians from Leipzig’s Mendelssohn-Akademie and the Tanglewood Music Center, where he has served as Head of Conducting since 2024.
Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig will open their 2025/26 season with a European tour alongside violinist Isabelle Faust, including a return to the BBC Proms and culminating in the season’s opening concert at the Gewandhaus. A further tour in November 2025 will feature celebrated soloists Seong-Jin Cho and Augustin Hadelich in performances across Europe. In Boston, Nelsons enters his 12th season as Music Director with a musical celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, including a concert series in Boston and a two-performance residency at Carnegie Hall. Additional highlights include semi-staged performances of Samuel Barber’s opera “Vanessa” and concerts of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis”. As Focus Artist at the Vienna Musikverein, Nelsons will conduct four concerts with the Gewandhausorchester and additional performances with the Wiener Philharmoniker. He will also conclude his Mahler cycle with the Wiener Philharmoniker and embark on a US tour with the orchestra in February and March 2026. In December 2025, Nelsons returns to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Berliner Philharmoniker.
Nelsons’s recording projects with Deutsche Grammophon, where he is an exclusive artist, reflect the depth and breadths of his musical vision. With the Boston Symphony Orchestra he recorded the complete symphonies and concertos of Shostakovich as well as the opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, earning four GRAMMY Awards for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Engineered Album. With the Gewandhausorchester, Nelsons completed a Bruckner symphonic cycle marking the composer’s bicentenary in 2024. His Beethoven cycle with the Wiener Philharmoniker was released in 2019. As part of the alliance between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Deutsche Grammophon also released a celebrated 2022 album of Richard Strauss’s major symphonic works performed by both orchestras.
Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Andris Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra whilst studying conducting. Outside music, Nelsons is a keen collector of perfumes and holds a 2nd degree black belt in Taekwondo. His deeply held commitment to musical excellence is reflected in the receipt of numerous professional accolades throughout his career, including the award of an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for services to music.
Oct. 2025