Andris Nelsons

In the 2024-2025 season, Andris Nelsons celebrates ten years as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Ray and Maria Stata Music Director. Nelsons became the fifteenth music director in the BSO’s history at the start of the 2014-2015 season. He made his debut with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall in March 2011, his Tanglewood debut in July 2012, and his Symphony Hall debut in January 2013. In January 2024, Head of Conducting at Tanglewood was added to his title to reflect his expanded commitment to pre-professional training.  

Andris Nelsons’ eleventh season as music director features several major projects, including performances of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in October, the full cycle of Beethoven’s nine symphonies in January, concert performances of Erich Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt, and performances of BSO-commissioned works by BSO Composer Chair Carlos Simon, Kevin Puts, and Aleksandra Vrebalov. Nelsons’ and the BSO’s annual two-concert series at Carnegie Hall in April features pianist Mitsuko Uchida performing Beethoven and cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing Shostakovich. The BSO season culminates in a European tour with performances in Vienna and Prague, as well as the orchestra’s first appearance in Nelsons’ native Riga. The tour concludes in Leipzig, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra joins the Gewandhausorchester for the Shostakovich Festival Leipzig, a comprehensive and globally unique celebration of the composer’s music, marking the 50th anniversary of his death. As both Music Director of the BSO and “Gewandhauskapellmeister” of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (GHO), a position he has held since 2018, Nelsons conducts both orchestras as they present the composer’s symphonies, concertos, and other orchestral and chamber works – and, as in November 2019 at Symphony Hall in Boston, both the BSO and the GHO merge together for a joint performance, this time of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7. During the festival, Nelsons also conducts the GHO in performances of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Leipzig opera house. This festival project stems from a unique partnership, initiated by Nelsons – the BSO/GHO Alliance.  

Andris Nelsons has previously led the BSO on four European tours, most recently in August and September 2023, where the BSO closed the prestigious international Salzburg Festival summer season in Austria, and two tours to Japan, which included numerous appearances at Tokyo’s renowned Suntory Hall.  

Andris Nelsons and the BSO’s ongoing series of recordings of the complete Shostakovich symphonies for recording label Deutsche Grammophon has earned three Grammy Awards for Best Orchestral Performance and one for Best Engineered Album. A box set of the complete BSO Shostakovich recordings including the symphonies, the concertos for piano, violin, and cello, and his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk will be issued in early 2025. As part of the BSO/GHO Alliance, Nelsons recorded the major orchestral works of Richard Strauss for a 2022 7-CD Deutsche Grammophon release featuring both orchestras. Under exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, he has recorded the complete symphonies of Beethoven with the Vienna Philharmonic and of Bruckner with the GHO.   

Nelsons continues his collaborations with the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic during this season. Since Nelsons’ first conducting position as Music Director of the Latvian National Opera from 2003-2007, opera has played a prominent role in his career, with frequent performances at the Royal Opera House in London and the Bayreuth Festival. Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter at the age of 17 in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra. Andris Nelsons practices taekwondo in his spare time and holds a second-degree black belt.