Conductor Nicolò Umberto Foron receives the Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk at the Musikfest Bremen 2023
Winner of the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition 2023
Nicolò Umberto Foron, the young German-Italian conductor, is currently Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Assistant Conductor of the Ensemble Intercontemporain. In March 2023, he won first prize in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, and also won first 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. This year the Deutschland Funk awarded Nicolò with the 2024 “Förderpreis” (Best Young Artist).
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, Mathias 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 opera Jettchen Gebert by Walter Kollo (Musikalische Komödie Leipzig), and three world premier opera productions written by Dutch composers.
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 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 Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Anatol Ugorski. From the age of 10,
he became a pupil of Jorma Panula and 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. Nicolò is part of the Forum Dirigieren of the Deutsche Musikrat. He continues to perform as a concert pianist and in chamber music with his younger sister, violinist Mira Foron.
During the 2023-24 season, Nicolò will give concerts with the Philharmonisches Orchester des Theaters Freiburg, Opéra National de Lorraine, Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, Deutsches Symphony Orchester, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. Future engagements will include conducting the SWR Symphony orchestra, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Bremen Symphony Orchestra, Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philarmonic Orchestra, assisting Robin Ticciati at Glyndebourne on Leoš Janáček’s Kat'á Kabanová and a concert at the Elbphilarmonie. Additionally, he will make his debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus with the Vienna Chamber orchestra. Nicolò will embark on four tours in 2025, among others one with Pannon Philharmonic orchestra and Viktoria Mullova.
