The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge

Jonathan Nott has been Principal Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra since 2000, lifting the Orchestra to a prominence acknowledged by their winning of the Midem Award for the best symphonic recording (of Mahler 9) of 2010.

Over the past decade, Jonathan has earned the trust of both the Orchestra and the Bamberg audiences, leading them into more challenging programming, combining contemporary music with the traditional, whilst giving new insight into standard repertoire. 10% of the Bamberg population are subscribers to the concert season.Since his appointment, Nott has toured regularly with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, visiting the USA, South America, China, Japan, the Salzburg Festival and the BBC Proms. Since 2006 he has regularly taken the Orchestra to the Berliner Festwochen, performing major works by Birtwistle, Nono, Boulez’ pli selon pli and, in 2011, Feldman. He also established a Mahler cycle at the Festspielhaus in Baden Baden. In 2007, Jonathan was artiste etoile at the Lucerne Summer Festival which included a performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. He achieved much acclaim for his five-concert residency at the Edinburgh Festival in 2003, and returns there for the two closing concerts with his Orchestra this September.Jonathan frequently guest conducts the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics and the Royal Concertgebouw, Tonhalle and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras. In January 2011, he returned to work with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducting a highly-acclaimed concert at the Salzburg Festival with Maurizio Pollini as soloist.

Jonathan is an inspiration to young musicians, working regularly with students at the Music Schools of Lucerne and Bern, and has recently created an academy in Bamberg. In 2009, he led the Mahler Youth Orchestra on a prestigious European tour in 2009 and this year will work with the Escuele de Music Reina Sofia in Madrid. In June 2010, Jonathan went back to his home city for his debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and this season returns to the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Ensemble intercontemporain. 2010-11 also marked his debut with the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin.

Jonathan studied music at Cambridge University, singing and flute at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and conducting in London. His career began working at the Frankfurt and Wiesbaden Operas where he conducted all the major operatic repertoire, including a complete Ring Cycle with Siegfried Jerusalem. During this time he began an enduring collaboration with the Ensemble Modern. From 1997-2002 he was Chief Conductor of the Luzern Symphony Orchestra and between 2000-2003, Principal Conductor of the Ensemble intercontemporain.During his tenure in Bamberg, Jonathan has established their artist-in-residence series, resulting in extended collaborations with Vadim Repin, Truls Mǿrk and Pierre-Laurent Aimard and a fruitful partnership with Peter Schmidt, with whom he worked on Haydn’s L’isola disabitata. Jonathan also initiated and presides over their triennial International Mahler Conducting Competition, whose first recipient was Gustavo Dudamel.

Nott has a distinguished recording career. György Ligeti became one of his mentors and, with the Berlin Philharmonic, Jonathan recorded the composer’s complete orchestral works for Teldec. Under the Tudor Records label, he has amassed an award-winning discography of works by Mahler, Bruckner, Schubert and Stravinsky, recorded with his Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. Their latest release this Spring will be Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, followed by Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 later in 2011.

Jonathan lives in Lucerne with his wife Helen and their three children.