Photo: Stu Rosner
Andris Nelsons has been named the next music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Nelsons, who is 34, will be the youngest conductor to hold the post in 100 years. The orchestra's last music director, James Levine, resigned in 2011 because of health problems.
Nelsons will initially take up the post of Boston Symphony Orchestra music director designate during the orchestra’s 2013-14 season and his first concert in that role will be on 17 October and include performances of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 and Brahms’s Symphony No. 3.
‘I am deeply honoured and touched that the Boston Symphony Orchestra has appointed me its next music director, as it is one of the highest achievements a conductor could hope for in his lifetime,’ says Nelsons. ‘Each time I have worked with the BSO I have been inspired by how effectively it gets to the heart of the music, always leaving its audience with a great wealth of emotions.’
The orchestra's managing director, Mark Volpe, says: 'We believe that Andris Nelsons will further the BSO's proud standing as one fo the world's greatest orchestras and bring his singular musical gifts to the orchestra and inspire its countless fans.'
Nelsons is also music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and his recent recording of Puccini’s Suor Angelica was shortlisted in the Opera category of this year’s BBC Music Magazine Awards.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1881 and Nelsons will become only its 15th music director, a position which has previously been held by Serge Koussevitzky, Charles Munch and Seiji Ozawa.
