Nicholas Carter To Lead The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 2016

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (ASO) today announced that 29-year-old Nicholas Carter has been appointed to the position of Principal Conductor – the first time in 30 years  that an Australian has been appointed to lead a state orchestra since Stuart Challender was named Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony in 1987.

In a coup for the orchestra, Mr Carter will head an artistic leadership team which includes two luminaries: the British conductor, Jeffrey Tate, as Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Adviser; and conductor, violinist, violist and pedagogue Pinchas Zukerman, as Artist-in-Association. This artistic leadership team has been appointed for a two-year term, commencing in 2016, the year of the orchestra’s 80th anniversary.

Melbourne-born Nicholas Carter is presently based in Berlin where he is Kapellmeister of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. His 2014 – 2015 conducting engagements will include Carmen, The Marriage of Figaro, The Rape of Lucretia, The Magic Flute and The Elixir of Love.

Previously he was musical assistant to Music Director Simone Young at the Hamburg State Opera. Prior to his move to Hamburg, Nicholas was for three years Assistant Conductor with the Sydney Symphony,working with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the orchestra’s guest conductors, and subsequently, Associate Conductor. He has been the ASO’s Associate Guest Conductor since 2014. 

ASO Managing Director, Vincent Ciccarello paid tribute to outgoing Music Director Arvo Volmer’s decade long tenure with the ASO saying “We continue to reap the rewards of his artistic legacy and we look forward to continuing our relationship with Arvo as a guest conductor into the future.” 

Nicholas Carter’s credentials speak for themselves. A conductor of exceptional versatility, he is at home in both the concert hall and the opera house, and fluent in a diverse repertoire. 

From 2011 to mid-2014 he was Kapellmeister at the Hamburg State Opera, as well as Musical Assistant to Music Director Simone Young where he was heavily involved in the preparation of a vast repertoire, including in the presentation of ten Wagner operas, to celebrate the 2013 bicentenary of the composer’s birth. In Hamburg, Nicholas conducted performances of Barbiere di Siviglia, Die Zauberflöte, Cosi fan tutte, Lucia di Lammermoor, Hänsel und Gretel, Cleopatra by Johan Mattheson and Orontea by Cesti.

Nicholas has appeared as Guest Conductor with orchestras in Europe, the US, New Zealand and Malaysia. He has led the Hamburg Philharmonic in a Gala with Diana Damrau as soloist and the Sydney Symphony in  gala with Anne Sofie von Otter.At the invitation of Donald Runnicles, he has served as Associate Conductor of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming since 2010.

In Australia, Nicholas has collaborated with many of the country’s major ensembles, which include all the state symphony orchestras, Orchestra Victoria, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) and the Australian Youth Orchestra. Nicholas made his debut for State Opera of South Australia conducting La Traviata in 2014. His working relationship with these ensembles continues through 2014- 15.  

Jeffrey Tate, CBE is one of Britain’s outstanding conductors. His association with the ASO extends as far back as 1998 when he conducted their production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with the State Opera of South Australia. He has garnered several prestigious awards for his work in Europe. Based with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Jeffrey Tate originally studied medicine at Cambridge University. He practiced for three years as an eye surgeon in London before he started his artistic career by joining the music staff at the Royal Opera Covent Garden in 1970.

He debuted at the Met in 1979, and with the English Chamber Orchestra in London in 1982/83 where he was appointed Principal Conductor in 1985 and established this ensemble’s reputation as one of the finest in the world. With the ECO, he produced critically acclaimed recordings of Haydn and Mozart Symphonies for EMI, as well as the complete Mozart piano concertos with Mitsuko Uchida as soloist. 

As Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre National de France, in 1994, he conducted the first complete staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in Paris since 1945. This production was restaged in 1998 in Adelaide with Maestro Tate conducting Australia’s first complete staged Ring ever. 

In 1991, Jeffrey Tate was appointed first Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. He has conducted numerous productions at the Bastille Opera and at the Châtelet in Paris and was given the honor of re-opening the Palais Garnier with Così fan tutte in 1996. He made his debut at La Scala in Milan in 2000 and has returned there regularly. Tate maintains a close relationship with many of the world’s major orchestras.

Pinchas Zukerman is a prodigious violinist, violist, conductor, pedagogue and chamber musician. A graduate of the Juilliard School where he studied with Ivan Galamian, his passion for teaching has resulted in innovative programs in London, New York, China, Israel and Ottawa. Over the last decade he has established  his reputation as a conductor . 

His 2014-2015 season includes over 100 performances around the world. He completes his 16th and final season as Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa with whom he toured the United Kingdom in October 
2014. In his sixth season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, he leads the ensemble in concerts in the United Kingdom as well as on its January 2015 tour of Florida. Other  appearances include engagements with orchestras around the US, Europe and Korea.

He returns to Australia in 2015 to perform in Queensland and West Australia.Recital appearances in Berlin, Istanbul, Seattle, San Diego and Ottawa and tours with the Zukerman Chamber Players to Italy, Spain, Australia, China, Japan and Korea round out the season. 

Now a dedicated pedagogue, Mr Zukerman chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts. In Canada, he has established the NAC Institute for Orchestra Studies and the Summer Music Institute encompassing the Young Artists, Conductors and Composers Programs. 

He has been awarded the Medal of Arts, the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence and was appointed as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s first instrumentalist mentor in the music discipline. Pinchas Zukerman’s extensive discography contains over 100 titles, and has earned him two Grammy awards and 21 nominations. 

 Stay tuned for our exclusive interview with Nicholas Carter….