Biography

Music Director Emeritus,
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale

Principal Guest Conductor, Capella Savaria

In his sixth decade on the podium, Nicholas McGegan has become one of the world’s most trusted interpreters of Baroque and Classical music — an artist whose gift is making history feel vibrantly present. Long hailed as “one of the finest baroque conductors of his generation” (The Independent) and “an expert in 18th-century style” (The New Yorker), he is prized as much for the wit, warmth, and insight he brings to the podium as for the scholarship beneath it. Following a 34-year tenure as Music Director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, he now holds the title of Music Director Emeritus, and he serves as Principal Guest Conductor of Hungary’s Capella Savaria. At home in the opera house, he shone new light on close to 20 Handel operas as Artistic Director of Germany’s International Handel Festival Göttingen for two decades (1991–2011), illuminated the Mozart canon as Principal Guest Conductor at Scottish Opera in the 1990s, and served as Principal Conductor of Sweden’s Drottningholm Court Theatre from 1993 to 1996.

McGegan’s approach — intelligent, infused with joy, and never dogmatic — has made him a pioneer in carrying historically informed performance beyond the world of period ensembles and into the repertoire of conventional symphonic forces, without ever alienating players or audiences. His guest-conducting appearances span many of the world’s major orchestras — among them the New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong Philharmonics; the Chicago, Dallas, Milwaukee, Toronto, Sydney, and New Zealand Symphonies; the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras; the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestras; and the orchestras of London’s Royal Opera House and Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw — where Baroque repertoire regularly sits alongside Classical, Romantic, twentieth-century, and brand-new works. He led the premiere of Stephen Hough’s Missa Mirabilis with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and, as a frequent collaborator with the Mark Morris Dance Group, has conducted the premiere productions of Rameau’s Platée and Handel’s Acis and Galatea. He has also appeared at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International Festival.

McGegan’s 2026–27 season reflects the international reach and stylistic range that define his work. In Europe, he leads Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Denmark’s Aalborg Symfoniorkester, and a program of Beethoven, Hoffmeister, and Haydn with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt. In North America, he returns for “Baroque at Bella” with the Calgary Philharmonic in a program of Rameau, Bach, and Handel; conducts Handel’s Messiah on period instruments at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York; and leads Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with his own Cantata Collective in Berkeley. The season’s second half moves from the opera house to the symphony hall and back to the next generation — Haydn’s Orlando Paladino with the Curtis Opera Theatre and Curtis Symphony Orchestra; a program of C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with pianist Steven Osborne at the Oregon Symphony; and Bach at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, joined by tenor Nicholas Phan.

McGegan’s prolific discography spans more than 100 releases across five decades. Having recorded over 50 albums of Handel — two of them honored with the U.K.’s prestigious Gramophone Award — he has explored the composer’s output through a dozen oratorios and close to 20 operas. Since the 1980s, more than 20 of his recordings have been made with Capella Savaria on the Hungaroton label, including groundbreaking accounts of Handel, Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Telemann, and Vivaldi. He has also released three albums with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra on BIS: Josef Mysliveček’s complete keyboard music with soloist Clare Hammond, and two recordings with horn player Alec Frank-Gemmill featuring early horn concertos and the complete Mozart horn concertos. His discography with Philharmonia Baroque includes two GRAMMY nominations — for Handel’s Susanna and Haydn’s Symphonies 104, 88, and 101 — and recent releases include Mozart’s violin concertos with Gil Shaham and the SWR Symphonieorchester and Mozart’s double concertos with violinist Zsolt Kalló and Capella Savaria.

With Cantata Collective, McGegan leads a multi-year Bach recording initiative for AVIE Records that has produced the St. John Passion, Mass in B Minor, Easter Oratorio, and Magnificat. The cycle’s St. Matthew Passion, released in spring 2026 to international acclaim, is the subject of a new documentary chronicling the recording.

A devoted mentor to the next generation of musicians, McGegan regularly conducts and coaches students in residencies at Yale University, the Juilliard School, Harvard University, the Colburn School, Aspen Music Festival and School, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West. He has been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, an honorary professorship at Georg-August University, Göttingen, and, in 2016, appointment as the Christoph Wolff Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard. His fun and illuminating lectures have delighted audiences at Juilliard, the Yale Center for British Art, the American Handel Society, and the San Francisco Conservatory.

English-born and educated at Cambridge and Oxford, McGegan was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) “for services to music overseas.” His other honors include the Halle Handel Prize, the Order of Merit of the State of Lower Saxony, the Medal of Honour of the City of Göttingen, and a declaration of Nicholas McGegan Day by the Mayor of San Francisco in recognition of his work with Philharmonia Baroque.

For more information, visit nicholasmcgegan.com or follow him on Facebook and Instagram: @nicholasmcgegan.