He's one of the most acclaimed conductors currently working, famed for his energy and passion, and is currently leader of two of the world's most respected orchestras. He's also conducting at the 2023 BBC Proms.
Here is our introduction to Andris Nelsons.
Who is Andris Nelsons?
Andris Nelsons is a conductor, born in Latvia. He's now one of the world's most respected and admired conductors, known in particular for his interpretations of the symphonies of Shostakovich, Mahler and Bruckner.
What orchestras does Andris Nelsons conduct?
Andris Nelsons is currently music director of both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Both these orchestras featured in our list of the world's best orchestras.
How old is Andris Nelsons?
Andris Nelsons was born on 18 November, 1978.
Where was Andris Nelsons born?
Nelsons was born in the Latvian capital, Riga.
Did he come come from a musical background?
Yes. Nelsons's father was a choral conductor, cellist, and teacher, while his mother founded Latvia's first early music ensemble.
Nelsons was just five when his mother and stepfather (another musical figure: he was a choir conductor) took him to a performance of Wagner's opera Tannhäuser. This experience had a profound effect on the future conductor.
'It had a hypnotic effect on me,' he has recalled. 'I was overwhelmed by the music. I cried when Tannhäuser died. I still think this was the biggest thing that happened in my childhood.'
The young Nelsons learned piano and trumpet (playing the latter for the orchestra of the Latvian National Opera). He also sang bass-baritone in his mother's ensemble.
How did Andris Nelsons get into conducting?
After studying conducting in Saint Petersburg and taking masterclasses with conductors including Neeme Järvi, Nelsons was spotted by fellow Latvian conductor Mariss Jansons, who has acted as a mentor for him.
Which other orchestras has Nelsons conducted?
Before the Boston and Leipzig jobs, Nelsons was chief conductor at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Who are Andris Nelsons's favourite composers?
In a 2018 interview, Andris Nelsons told us: 'Mahler is very special for me (...) Every note in Mahler you have to give 100 per cent. He's not a composer where you can save it at some moments and maybe give 120 per cent in other places. I think you have to burn yourself, Mahler requires it.'
Nelsons is also a noted conductor of Shostakovich, having conducted the entire cycle of 15 Shostakovich symphonies with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Check out our 15 Shostakovich symphony guides, written by another noted Shostakovich conductor, Vasily Petrenko.
What has Nelsons said about the joys and challenges of conducting different orchestras?
'In one sense conducting is a national, global language where one gesture means the same in one continent as it does in another,' Nelsons told us in our 2018 interview. 'Of course as a conductor that’s your language, your technique – your gestures, your face, the energy, or charisma.
'It’s like so many languages; I mean you look to the Baltic states, it’s a small territory relatively speaking, and there are so many countries and each has different languages. Some of these countries have nothing to do with each other, like Latvian is nothing to do with Estonian, or Russian, or Lithuanian, yet they’re so close and they understand each other’s lifestyles and traditions. But they’re also so different and they want to cherish their identity and keep that.
'In the orchestra world I find it’s the same; there’s a universal understanding, but there is a very individual, personal approach – the taste, the colour, the aftertaste. I’m relatively young, but somehow the idea of this I’m very much attracted to.'
Andris Nelsons: best recordings
Shostakovich: Symphonies 5, 8 & 9 / Hamlet Suite Boston Symphony Orchestra DG 479 5201
From our review: 'This Eighth goes even further [than Nelsons's previous acclaimed account of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10], if only because this most adamantine of the 15 symphonies demands even greater concentration from performers and listeners.
'The sound is a crucial component: to hear the highest frequencies of shrill piccolos and the presence of the bass in the biggest vertical shocks is to conjure up images of skyscrapers burning and toppling. And yet alongside Nelsons’s unique feeling for rubato, the sheer expressive beauty of the string playing, the constant surprises when the torch passes to the many aching or screaming woodwind solos and ensembles also represent a tonal sophistication beyond Mravinsky’s and Rozhdestvensky’s Soviet ensembles.'
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 / Wagner: Lohengrin Prelude Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra DG
From our review: 'This disc starts with the Prelude to Act I of Wagner’s Lohengrin, that ‘first example of hypnotism in music’ as Nietzsche called it. Certainly it is hypnotically beautiful here, played with faultless intonation and a sublime crescendo. (...) [The Bruckner] is performed here with great conviction, as much as in any recording in recent years.'
Berg: Violin Concerto / Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 / Schleiermacher: Relief for Orchestra Baiba Skride / Gewandhausorchester Leipzig Accentus Music (DVD)
From our review: 'Andris Nelsons’s official opening concert as principal conductor of the Gewandhausorchester offers top-flight music-making being allowed to do its own talking (..) The sound is a feast in its own right – a lovely balance of clarity, spaciousness, and glowing warmth.
'With Skride’s unfussy account of Berg’s musical portrayal of the winsome personality, illness, death, and imagined heavenward ascent of Manon Gropius, Alma Mahler’s teenage daughter, the work becomes as moving as it should be. (...) Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony is played with poise and gorgeousness.'
