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|  In the 28 years he has served as music director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Kent Nagano has established an international reputation as a gifted interpreter of both the operatic and symphonic repertoire. In September 2006, he began his tenure as music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and also became general music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Nagano’s early professional years were spent in Boston, working in the opera house and as assistant conductor to Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1984, Olivier Messiaen selected Nagano to assist in premiering his opera, Saint François d’Assise. Nagano’s success in America led to European appointments: music director of the Opéra National de Lyon (1988-1998), music director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000) and associate principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. World premieres from these years include Bernstein’s A White House Cantata and operas by Peter Eötvös (Three Sisters), John Adams (The Death of Klinghoffer and El Niño), and Saariaho’s L’amour de loin at the Salzburg Festival. A new and important phase of Nagano’s career opened when he became artistic director and chief conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2000. With the orchestra, he performed Schönberg’s Moses und Aron, in collaboration with Los Angeles Opera. He took the orchestra to the Salzburg Festival, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and released numerous recording and DVDs. In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, he was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra, only the second recipient of this honor in their 60-year history. He will be principal guest conductor of the orchestra for the 2006-07 season. Kent Nagano became the first music director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003, having already held the position of principal conductor for two years. Productions there ranged from a series of Mozart operas, to Strauss, Puccini, and Wagner. His work in other opera houses in recent seasons has included Shostakovich’s The Nose (Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin), Rimsky Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel (Châtelet, Paris), and Hindemith’s Cardillac (Opéra National de Paris). As a much sought-after guest conductor he has worked with most of the world’s finest orchestras including the Vienna, Berlin, and New York Philharmonic Orchestras and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has recorded for Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, and Deutsche Grammophon as well as Harmonia Mundi, winning Grammy awards for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opéra National de Lyon and Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra. The son of second-generation Japanese immigrants, Kent Nagano was born in Berkeley, and grew up on a farm in Morro Bay, California. By the age of four, he was playing piano, and by the time he reached high school, he was proficient on the clarinet and viola. During his youth he became an avid surfer and developed an interest in high-performance cars, interests he continues to enjoy. He earned his B.A. in music and sociology at the University of California Santa Cruz and completed his Masters in music at San Francisco State. | |
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