Nicholas Carter

Newly appointed as Chief Conductor of the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and the Kärntner Sinfonieorchester, Nicholas Carter will lead three new productions per season and appear regularly in the orchestra’s concert series. In his first season, he conducts Rusalka, La Clemenza di Tito and Pelléas et Mélisande, and concert programmes include Haydn’s Die Schöpfung and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.

Since his appointment as Principal Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 2016, Nicholas has established a reputation as a conductor of exceptional versatility, equally at home in the concert hall and opera house, and fluent in a diverse repertoire. Indeed his appointment was significant, as he became the first Australian to be chosen as Principal Conductor of an Australian orchestra in over 30 years. Between 2011 and 2014, he served as Kapellmeister to Simone Young in Hamburg, before moving on to a 2 year engagement as Kapellmeister and Musical Assistant to Donald Runnicles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, a house where he enjoys a rewarding ongoing association.

Highlights of recent seasons include debuts with Orchestre Métropolitain (Montreal), Bochumer Symphoniker, MDR Leipzig, Oregon Symphony, Florida Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orchestre National de Lille, Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Don Pasquale), Santa Fe Opera (Die Fledermaus, summer 2017). He also returned to Hong Kong Philharmonic, and to Deutsche Oper Berlin (The Love for Three Oranges, Le nozze di Figaro, La bohème, La Traviata and Hansel und Gretel).

In Australia, he collaborates regularly with many of the country’s leading orchestras and ensembles and led the 2018 Adelaide Festival’s acclaimed full staging of Brett Dean’s Hamlet. Past engagements have included the Melbourne, Sydney, West Australian, Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras with soloists such as Michelle de Young, Simon O’Neill, Alina Ibragimova, Alexander Gavrylyuk and James Ehnes; also galas with Maxim Vengerov (Queensland Symphony) and Anne Sofie von Otter (Sydney Symphony).

This season includes performances with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin (concert debut, including Brett Dean’s Pastoral Symphony and Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony) and returns to BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Don Carlo). The Adelaide concert season features Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Beethoven Symphony No. 9 and a commercial recording of the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Jayson Gillham. He also returns to the orchestra of the Australian National Academy of Music Melbourne and to the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. The 2021/22 season sees his Metropolitan Opera debut with Brett Dean’s Hamlet.