Kent Nagano
Kent George Nagano (born November 22, 1951) is an American conductor and opera administrator. He is currently the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.
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[edit] Biography
Nagano was born in Berkeley, California, while his parents were in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. He grew up in Morro Bay, a city located on the Central Coast of California. He is Japanese American. He studied sociology and music at the University of California, Santa Cruz[citation needed]. After graduation he moved to San Francisco State University to study music. While there, he took composition courses from Grosvenor Cooper and Roger Nixon. He also studied at the École Normale de Musique in Paris.[1]
His first conducting job was with the Opera Company of Boston, where he was assistant conductor to Sarah Caldwell. In 1978, he became the conductor of the Berkeley Symphony, his first music directorship. He stepped down from this position in 2009.[2] During his tenure in Berkeley, Nagano became a champion of the music of Olivier Messiaen and initiated a correspondence with him.[3]
In 1982, Nagano conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in several of Frank Zappa's completely orchestral compositions for the first time. Nagano recorded several of Zappa's pieces on the issue London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 1, where Zappa had personally chosen Nagano to conduct the orchestra. Nagano described this as "my first chance, my first real break".[4]
In 1985 he was awarded the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award.
Nagano was music director of the Opéra de Lyon from 1988–1998, where he recorded, with the Lyon National Opera Orchestra and chorus, numerous works by Busoni (Doktor Faust, Arlecchino and Turandot), Stravinsky (The Rake's Progress), Offenbach (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Debussy (world premiere of Rodrigue et Chimène), Canteloube (Chants d'Auvergne), Berlioz (La Damnation de Faust), Carlisle Floyd (Susannah), Richard Strauss (The French version of Salomé, the original version of Ariadne auf Naxos), Peter Eötvös (Trois Soeurs), Massenet (Werther), Delibes (Coppelia), Poulenc(Dialogues des Carmélites), Ravel (orchestral works), and Weill (Seven Deadly Sins).
He served as principal conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester from 1992-1999. During his tenure, Nagano received criticism for his expensive and ambitious programming, as well as his conducting fees.[5] However, poor financial management at the orchestra separately contributed to the fiscal troubles of the orchestra.[6] His contract was not renewed after 1999.
On August 4, 1996, Icelandic avant-pop artist Björk appeared at the Verbier Festival, and performed Schöenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, with conductor Kent Nagano.
Nagano created the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2001.
Nagano became principal conductor and artistic director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2000, and served in this position until 2006. He made a number of recordings with the orchestra, including music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Bruckner, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Gustav Mahler.
Nagano became principal conductor at Los Angeles Opera (LA Opera) starting from the 2001-2002 season. In May 2003, Nagano was named the LA Opera's first music director, and he retained this position through 2006. He has been a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, where he premiered Kaija Saariaho's L'amour de loin in 2000. He also conducted the world premiere of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer at la Monnaie in Brussels.
Nagano became the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in 2006 and of the Bavarian State Opera in 2006; his current contracts with each organisation end in 2011[7] and he has opted not to extend his contract in Munich beyond the summer of 2013.[8] His contract with the Bavarian State Opera does not allow him to be the music director of another opera company.[9] He is also one of the Russian National Orchestra's Conductor Collegium.[10]
Nagano is married to the pianist Mari Kodama, and they have one daughter.
[edit] Honors
- Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, 2008.
- Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize 2010, Beethovenfest Bonn
[edit] Notes
- ^ "FAMOUS PLACE TO LEARN MUSIC". L'Ecole. http://www.ecolenormalecortot.com/rep2/index.html. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
- ^ "Joana Carneiro named Berkeley Symphony music director". Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. 15 January 2009. http://www.berkeleysymphony.org/documents/BSO_01.15.09_CarneiroAnnouncement.pdf. Retrieved 2010-06-11.
- ^ Allan Kozinn (1 November 1987). "Nagano With a Little Bit of Luck, a Conducting Career Flourishes". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE3D6103DF932A35752C1A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
- ^ Burnett, Richard (2008-09-04). "Nagano grooves". Hour (magazine). http://www.hour.ca/music/music.aspx?iIDArticle=15442. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
- ^ John Ezard (25 May 1999). "Nagano passes on Halle baton". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,299041,00.html. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
- ^ Stephen Moss (28 May 1999). "Say Hallé, wave goodbye". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/friday_review/story/0,,296869,00.html. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
- ^ Arthur Kaptainis (19 November 2008). "Maestro emotionally engaged with BSO". Montreal Gazette. http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=6b5fcecd-9d5f-4e1b-b5ff-7bc2b3f5348e. Retrieved 2008-11-21.
- ^ DPA (6 July 2010). "Kent Nagano will nicht in München bleiben". DPA. http://de.news.yahoo.com/26/20100706/ten-kent-nagano-will-nicht-in-mnchen-ble-209b785.html. Retrieved 2010-07-06.[dead link]
- ^ Daniel J. Wakin (17 September 2004). "National Briefing, West: California: Short Stay For A Music Director". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E2D61639F934A2575AC0A9629C8B63. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
- ^ Vadim Prokhorov (18 March 2004). "Batons at dawn". The Guardian. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1171738,00.html. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
[edit] External links
- Kent Nagano official website
- Kent Nagano at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
- Kent Nagano at Allmusic
- Kent Nagano discography
- 2008 Autumn Conferment of Decorations on Foreign Nationals
| Preceded by John Eliot Gardiner |
Music Director, Opéra National de Lyon 1988-1998 |
Succeeded by Louis Langrée |
| Preceded by Vladimir Ashkenazy |
Principal Conductor, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin 2000-2006 |
Succeeded by Ingo Metzmacher |
| Preceded by no predecessor |
Principal Conductor and Music Director, Los Angeles Opera 2001-2006 |
Succeeded by James Conlon |
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