Kent Nagano is considered one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral
repertoire. From September 2015 until August 2025, he was General Music Director of the Hamburg
State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. From September
2026, Kent Nagano will be Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de
España in Madrid and will take on the role of Principal Artistic Partner of the Filarmonica Toscanini
from the 2025/2026 season. In addition, he is committed as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The
Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln,
and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches
Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de
Montréal since 2021 and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since 2023.
As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano regularly works with leading international
orchestras worldwide, including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Munich Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Radio France, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre
de la Suisse Romande, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestras,
the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest and the Wiener Symphoniker.
Nagano was awarded Grammys for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opéra National de
Lyon, Prokofjew’s Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho’s L’amour de
Loin with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin. He has worked with labels such as BIS, Decca,
Sony Classical, FARAO Classics and Analekta for many years, and has also recorded CDs with Berlin
Classics, Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi.
In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In “10 Lessons of
my Life”, he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from
which he learned important lessons, not only for his career
but for his life more broadly. Among those experiences are
encounters with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa,
Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner
in physics Donald Glaser.
Kent Nagano was awarded an honorary doctorate from
McGill University in Montréal in 2005, an honorary doctorate
from the Université de Montréal in 2006, and an
honorary doctorate from San Francisco State University in
2018. Since 2017, Kent Nagano has been a „Compagnon“
of the “Ordre des arts et des lettres” of Québec and in the
fall of 2023, Kent Nagano was also awarded the title of
“Chevalier” in the “Ordre des art et des lettres” of France.
In February 2024, Kent Nagano was awarded the Order of
Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal
President and in June 2024 he was awarded the Order
of Canada, Canada‘s highest civilian honor. Kent Nagano
is the recipient of the 2024 Brahms Prize of the Brahms
Society of Schleswig-Holstein.
