Nicolò Umberto Foron - conductor
Nicolò Umberto Foron, a young German-Italian conductor, is currently Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and assistant conductor of Ensemble Intercontemporain. In March 2023, he won first prize in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, and also won 1st prize in the International Conducting Competition "Jeunesse Musicales" Bucharest 2021. He was chosen as a Tanglewood Conducting Fellow in 2022 and selected for Peter Eotvos's Mentoring Programme. He is part of the German Forum Dirigieren. In the last two seasons, Foron has conducted various orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn-Academy/Gewandhausorchestra Leipzig, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Staatskapelle Weimar, Opera National de Montpellier, Symfonieorkest, Vlaanderen, and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. He has also assisted a number of distinguished conductors including Sir Antonio Pappano, Andris Nelsons, Matthias Pintscher, Sir Mark Elder, Daniele Gatti, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Martyn Brabbins and Trevor Pinnock. Nicolò Foron has a diverse repertoire with many world premieres through his close collaboration with Ensemble Intercontemporain. Next to his extensive symphonic repertoire, he has conducted several opera productions including semi-staged performances of The Marriage of Figaro (Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy), Hansel and Gretel (Staatskapelle Weimar), the operetta Jettchen Gebert by Walter Kollo (Musikalische Komödie Leipzig, and three of his own operas, all newly written for productions in Holland. As his “lockdown” project, Nicolò Foron conducted the Noord Netherlands Orchestra in a livestream and CD recording of, among other works, the world premiere of the Cello Concerto by Jan Peter de Graaff at the Tivoli Vredenburg-Utrecht. The CD of this concert was nominated for the German Schallplatten Prize 01/2022. In August 2023, German National Broadcasting named him Artist in Residence Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk und Musikfest Bremen, recognising him as young artist of the year. As part of this award, he will undertake a concert tour and a CD recording with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2024. His concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and his recent concert with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Ensemble Intercontemporain, were be broadcast on ARTE and Radio France. Nicolò began his education in conducting, composition, and piano, his first instrument, at a young age. He first studied piano with K-H. Kämmerling and A. Ugorski. From the age of 10, he became a pupil of Jorma Panula was subsequently invited by Bernhard Haitink to participate in his masterclasses at the Lucerne Festival. At the age of 16, Nicolò began his formal conducting studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, followed by a masters' degree at the Royal College of Music and an advanced Diploma in Performance at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he graduated in 2021. He continues to perform as a concert pianist and in chamber music with his younger sister, violinist Mira Foron.