Nicholas Collon is establishing an enviable reputation as a commanding and inspirational interpreter in an exceptionally wide range of music. As Principal Conductor of Aurora Orchestra he has promoted imaginative programming that integrates challenging repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries with masterworks of the Classical and Romantic eras.

In addition to his work with Aurora he regularly conducts other ensembles in London and is increasingly heard outside the UK. A viola player, pianist and organist by training, Nicholas studied at Clare College, Cambridge. He was awarded the 2008 Arts Foundation Fellowship for conducting, having been chosen from a list of twenty nominated British conductors.

With Aurora Orchestra, Nicholas has explored a wide variety of repertoire, including the chamber symphonies of John Adams, Schoenberg and Schreker, Birtwistle’s Secret Theatre, Strauss’s Metamorphosen and Ligeti's Chamber Concerto, which he performed to acclaim at the Aldeburgh Festival. He has also appeared with Aurora in the Spitalfields and Barbican Young Genius Festivals, at the BBC Proms as part of the Young Composers’ Competition and at the Al Bustan Festival, Lebanon. Other recent concert work includes the chamber version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Orchestra of Opera North, Shostakovich Symphony No 4 with the Kensington Symphony and Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique with the Salomon Orchestra.

His operatic experience includes a recent programme of Walton’s The Bear and Stravinsky’s Renard for Mahogany Opera in 2008. In April 2007 he conducted Mozart’s The Magic Flute, directed by Sam West, in Ramallah and Bethlehem, the first-ever staged opera production in the West Bank, where he will return to in 2009 with Puccini’s ‘La Bohème’. Nicholas will be expanding his operatic repertoire by assisting Sir Mark Elder in Szymanowski’s King Roger at the Bregenz Festival and again as assistant conductor in Tosca for Opera North.

Other concert work this season includes a tour of Austria (Stravinsky and Schumann) with Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with the Salomon Orchestra, Copland Symphony No. 3 with the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, and engagements with the Orchestra of Opera North, Chelsea Opera Group, and the Haydn Chamber Orchestra.

Visit www.nicholascollon.co.uk for more information.

Please do not reprint this biography; for a full up-to-date biography, please visit www.vanwalsum.co.uk/artists/nc.php.