Andris Nelsons

Andris Nelsons is in his twelfth season as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and also holds the position of Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (GHO). Recognized as one of the world’s finest conductors, the Grammy Award-winning artist also guest conducts and records with the world’s finest orchestras. In the 2025-2026 BSO season, Nelsons and the BSO celebrate the 125th anniversary of Symphony Hall and its central place in the cultural life of Boston in parallel with the 250th birthday of the United States. In October, Nelsons conducts Beethoven’s monumental Missa Solemnis, with which the BSO inaugurated Symphony Hall in 1900. Among other highlights of the BSO’s American programming at Symphony Hall, Nelsons leads concert performances of Samuel Barber’s celebrated opera Vanessa, an all-John Williams program featuring the composer’s new Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with soloist Emanuel Ax, and music from John Adams’s opera Nixon in China featuring soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Thomas Hampson, which he also conducts in the orchestra’s annual Carnegie Hall concerts. He further works with such soloists as violinist Augustin Hadelich, the BSO’s 2025-2026 Artist in Residence, and pianists Seong-Jin Cho, Yunchan Lim, and Lang Lang.  

Nelsons’ recording projects as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist reflect the depth and breadth of his musical vision. In 2026, Nelsons’ recordings with the BSO were honored with two Grammy Awards: for Best Orchestral Performance for Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie, featuring pianist Yuja Wang and ondes Martenot player Cécile Lartigau, and for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for Yo-Yo Ma’s recording of the Shostakovich cello concertos. Further 2026 Grammy nominations included the BSO’s recordings of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and the piano concertos with Yuja Wang. Also in 2025, Deutsche Grammophon released the BSO and Andris Nelsons’ recordings of the two Ravel piano concertos with soloist Seong-Jin Cho. Over the course of a decade, he and the Boston Symphony Orchestra recorded the complete Shostakovich symphonies and concertos and the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Released as a 19-CD box set in May 2025, these recordings have won a total of 5 Grammys.  

In the 2024-2025 season, Nelsons and the BSO celebrated his tenth anniversary season as the orchestra’s music director in programs that included a highly successful three-week cycle of the nine Beethoven symphonies, concert performances of Erich Korngold’s rarely heard opera Die tote Stadt, and music of Shostakovich and Beethoven with soloists Yo-Yo Ma and Mitsuko Uchida at Carnegie Hall. In May 2025, he toured with the BSO to his hometown of Riga, Latvia, as well as to Prague and Vienna in advance of the orchestra’s joint residency with the Gewandhausorchester for the Shostakovich Festival Leipzig, marking the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death.  In Leipzig, Nelsons led both the BSO and the Gewandhausorchester in performances including the composer’s six concertos, the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, and 13 of the 15 symphonies, including a historic performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony by a combined orchestra of BSO and GHO musicians. He conducted a Festival Orchestra made up of young musicians from Leipzig’s Mendelssohn-Akademie and the BSO’s Tanglewood Music Center, where he has served as Head of Conducting since 2024. This momentous series built upon the GHO’s week-long residency at Boston’s Symphony Hall in fall 2019.  

Andris Nelsons began his tenure in Boston at the start of the 2014-2015 season and was appointed Gewandhauskapellmeister in Leipzig in February 2018. Shortly thereafter, he established the innovative BSO/GHO Alliance, which has resulted in joint programming, commissions, recordings, touring projects, a musician exchange, and educational initiatives. As part of the BSO/GHO Alliance, Deutsche Grammophon released a celebrated 2022 seven-CD album of Richard Strauss’s major symphonic works featuring both orchestras. With the Gewandhausorchester, Nelsons completed a Bruckner symphonic cycle marking the composer’s bicentenary in 2024. His Beethoven cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic was released in 2019. 

Nelsons’ other recent activities include opening the 2025-26 GHO season with a European tour and a further tour in November 2025. As Focus Artist at the Vienna Musikverein, Nelsons conducts concerts with the GHO and with the Vienna Philharmonic this season. He concludes his Mahler cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic and embarks on a U.S. tour with the orchestra in February and March that includes a performance at Symphony Hall co-presented by the BSO. He returns to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic. 

Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Andris Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra whilst studying conducting. Outside music, Nelsons is a keen collector of perfumes and holds a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo. His deeply held commitment to musical excellence is reflected in numerous accolades throughout his career, including an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for services to music.