Nicolò Foron

© Veit Mette

Nicolò Foron

Nicolò Umberto Foron, a young German-Italian conductor, is currently the Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. In March 2023, he won first prize at the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and first prize at the Jeunesses Musicales International Conducting Competition in Bucharest in 2021. In 2022, he was selected as a Tanglewood Conducting Fellow and for the mentoring program of Peter Eötvös. He is also a member of the German Forum Dirigieren.

Over the past two seasons, Foron has conducted various orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Mendelssohn Academy/Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Opéra National de Montpellier, the Symphony Orchestra of Flanders, and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. Furthermore, he has assisted a number of notable conductors, including Sir Antonio Pappano, Andris Nelsons, Matthias Pintscher, Lorin Maazel, Sir Mark Elder, Daniele Gatti, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Martyn Brabbins, and Trevor Pinnock.

During the pandemic, Nicolò recorded his first CD with the North Netherlands Orchestra, which included the world premiere of Jan-Peter de Graaff's Cello Concerto at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. The concert was broadcast live and was nominated for the German Record Critics' Award 01/2022. In August 2023, he was awarded the "Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk und Musikfest Bremen" as Young Artist of the Year by German Radio. 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 were broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and his recent concert with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Ensemble Intercontemporain was broadcast by ARTE and Radio France.

Nicolò began his training in conducting, composition, and piano at a young age. He initially studied piano with K.-H. Kämmerling and A. Ugorski. From the age of 10, he was a student of Jorma Panula and was later invited by Bernard Haitink to participate in his master classes at the Lucerne Festival. At the age of 16, Nicolò began his formal conducting studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, followed by a master's degree at the Royal College of Music and a concert diploma at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he graduated in 2021. He continues to perform chamber music with his sister, violinist Mira Foron.

This season, Nicolò will perform with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Theater Freiburg, the Opéra National de Lorraine, the Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. Future engagements include conducting the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Bremen Philharmonic, and the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra. He will also assist Robin Ticciati at Glyndebourne for Leoš Janáček's Katya Kabanova and will perform at the Elbphilharmonie. Additionally, he will make his debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.