NICHOLAS COLLON is one of the fastest
rising stars in the business. Still only two years past his 30th
birthday, he’s already co-founded an orchestra and seen it perform at the
London Proms, has been appointed conductor of one of Holland’s top symphony
orchestras – and is in demand as guest maestro.
He’s also got to know Manchester’s
orchestras, conducting the Camerata in 2011 in a programme of American music,
the BBC Philharmonic last December in Berlioz, Brahms and Stravinsky (he’s back
with them next February), and recording music by Colin Matthews with the Hallé last
year.
But now comes his concert debut with the
Hallé – in the
popular ‘Opus One’ series, performed three times over in the Bridgewater Hall
(November 11 at 2.15pm and November 12 and 15 at 7.30pm).
He’s
directing them in Richard Strauss’s tone poem about Till Eulenspiegel,
Saint-Saëns’ cello concerto and Dvořák’s Silent Woods (both with soloist Jian
Wang), and finally Beethoven’s dynamic Symphony no. 7.
Nicholas comes of musical stock. His
grandmother was his piano teacher, and his mother his violin teacher. He joined
the youth orchestra in his home county
of Surrey … and the
conducting bug bit.
“The first thing we ever played was the
overture to Die Meistersinger by Wagner,” he says, “and at that point I think I
first wanted to be a conductor.”
Educated at Eton, he went to Clare College,
Cambridge as
organ scholar and got his first real experience of musical direction. “It was a
fabulous college to be at, musically. I conducted the choir and I learned a
tremendous amount there.”
Aged 20, he founded the Aurora
Orchestra with friend and Clare
College contemporary Robin
Ticciati (now making his own meteoric career).
“My way of learning conducting was simply
to do it,” says Nicholas. “The orchestra began with people we knew from the
National Youth Orchestra, Cambridge
and the Royal Academy of Music – there was a whole generation of musicians who
created a real buzz.
“To begin with, we just put on a concert. I
went round with cap in hand and about 60 people became our ‘friends’ and
patrons. It all picked up from there – now we have a permanent structure.”
Nicholas has just been made principal conductor
of the Residentie Orkester in The
Hague, a job he’ll take up next winter season.
No comments:
Post a Comment