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© 2005 David M. Allen |
Nic's Profile
Quick Nic Facts
Articles by Nic
Recognized by The New Yorker as “an acclaimed expert in eighteen-century style”, Nicholas McGegan is an “international” conductor. Based in the San Francisco Bay area where he is Music Director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO), he is called upon by symphony orchestras across the globe to conduct not only the music of Handel, Rameau, Haydn and Mozart, but also Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn and clean-limbed 20th- and 21st-century music.
The 2007-08 season provided a perfect snapshot of his busy schedule. Summer 2007 was taken up with performances at the Ravinia Festival, with Patti Lupone and the PBO, of Jake Heggie’s To Hell and Back; a week at the Aspen Music Festival; and four programs at the Hollywood Bowl; followed by Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas and a Salieri opera at the Edinburgh International Festival.
In the autumn Mr. McGegan was in St Paul with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, in San Francisco with the PBO, in St. Louis with the St. Louis Symphony and in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Orchestra. During November and December he returned to San Francisco and Glasgow, to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and to the Detroit Symphony, ending the year with four performances of Messiah in Avery Fisher Hall with the New York Philharmonic.
His guest appearances since January 2008 include a New Year’s gala with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Schnittke, Tippett, Martinu and Bach over three different programs with the St. Louis Symphony; a Shakespeare-themed program with the Atlanta Symphony; a Libby Larson world premiere with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; returns to the Northern Sinfonia (UK) and Goteborg Symphony (Sweden); and the 88th season of the International Handel-Festival Gottingen, of which he has been Artistic Director since 1991. At this year’s Festival he conducted fully-staged performances of Handel’s Orlando, concert performances of Handel’s Samson, and the modern-day premiere performances and recording of Mendelssohn’s arrangement of Handel’s Acis and Galatea.
Highlights of the coming season include returns to the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic and residencies at the Juilliard School and at Yale University.
Mr. McGegan is an active recording artist, with an extensive discography with the PBO and other performing groups, including the Gottingen Festival Opera and Orchestra, and the Arcadian Academy. Mr. McGegan’s world-premiere recording of Handel’s Susanna with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and the PBO earned a Gramophone Award. His most recent recordings are Handel’s Atalanta and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, both with PBO and available online at iTunes and Magnatune.com, and Handel’s Solomon with the Gottingen Festival Orchestra for Carus. Slated for release later this year are the Gottingen Samson and Acis and Galatea.
Born in England and educated at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, Mr. McGegan has an honorary degree from London’s Royal College of Music and was elected an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in 2006. His hobbies include food, wine, crossword puzzles, travel, tending roses in his garden in Berkeley, California and furnishing his 19th century flat in Scotland. Visit Mr. McGegan on the web at www.nicholasmcgegan.com.
Last updated April 2008
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