Paris-based Conductor Gets Handel

If you’ve seen a major orchestra perform, you can safely bet that they have worked under the baton of John Nelson. The Oregon Bach Festival welcomes Maestro Nelson as a guest conductor in our July 7th performance of Handel’s L’Allegro.

John Nelson conducts in virtually every major city in the world. In America, he has worked with the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, as well as orchestras in San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago, to name a few. He has of course also done extensive work in Europe with many London orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and principally as the Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris.

A vocal music specialist and Grammy-award winner, his passion is for opera, as well as sacred masterpieces. He is noted for his inspired interpretations of great choral works such as the Bach Passions and B Minor Mass. Out of his love for such pieces, and his concern for the lack of 20th century choral works, he founded Soli Deo Gloria Inc., a non-profit organization that annually commissions a leading composer for a major sacred work. His recent projects have included works by Schoenfield, Gorecki, Rouse, and Osvaldo Golijov.

Born in Costa Rica, John Nelson studied at the Julliard School of Music. He has held the title of Music Director with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (from 1976 to 1987) with the Opera Theatre of St Louis (from 1979 to 1988), and, in the late nineties, found a home in Paris where he lives with his wife, Anita.