Music Director Laureate Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale
Principal Guest Conductor Capella Savaria
In his sixth decade on the podium, Nic McGegan — long hailed as “one of the finest baroque conductors of his generation” (The Independent) and “an expert in 18th-century style” (The New Yorker) — is recognized for his probing and revelatory explorations of music of all periods. Following a 34-year tenure as Music Director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, he is now Music Director Laureate. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of Hungary’s Capella Savaria. At home in opera houses, McGegan was previously the Artistic Director and conductor at Germany‘s Göttingen Handel Festival for 20 years (1991-2011), and Principal Guest Conductor at Scottish Opera in the 1990s. He was also Principal Conductor of Sweden’s Drottningholm Court Theatre from 1993-1996.
Best known as a baroque and classical specialist, Nicholas McGegan’s ability to engage players and audiences alike has made him a pioneer in broadening the reach of historically informed practice beyond the world of period ensembles to conventional symphonic forces. His guest-conducting appearances with major orchestras — including the New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong Philharmonics; the Chicago, Dallas, Utah, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Toronto, Sydney, and New Zealand Symphonies; the Philadelphia Orchestra; the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestras; and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw — often feature Baroque repertoire alongside Classical, Romantic, 20th-century and even brand-new works.
His discography includes more than 100 releases. His recordings with PBO have received two GRAMMY nominations and a Gramophone Award. His other recordings include more than 20 recordings with Hungary’s Capella Savaria and two recent albums with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under the BIS label.
Recent and future engagements in Europe include performances with Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Oulu Symphony and Antwerp Symphony Orchestra. He also conducts Handel’s Deborah at Herrenhausen with the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover and staged productions of Giulio Cesare with Irish Baroque Orchestra and Le Nozze di Figaro for the Royal Danish Opera.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Messiah / RSNO
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, January 2025
“we witnessed string playing served up with a virgin purity attained through minimal vibrato and naturally breath-like phrasing, trumpeting that favoured pinpoint clarity over martial bombast, and singing from the chorus that gave every textural detail, every conversational counterpoint, a glistening clarity….. it was the completeness of McGegan’s vision, its patient but unlaboured flow, that proved the ultimate triumph.”
Ken Walton, VoxCarnyx
Le nozze di Figaro
Royal Danish Opera, October- November 2024
Anne Barslev’s new production of Le nozze di Figaro opened at the opera house on October 6 and, once again, the conducting was to savour—this time from Nicholas McGegan. His was a brisk, light-footed reading seasoned with stylish but never ostentatious ornamentations from continuo (Alessandro Stefanelli) and the singers, notably Theodore Platt’s smooth Count and Nina van Essen’s pert Cherubino.
Andrew Mellor, Opera Magazine January 2025
Conductor Nicholas McGegan brings it all together like a true master through his well-considered choice of tempi, whereby the Mozartian sound unfolds in the orchestra and the acoustics of the entire room. McGegan's handling of the score resulted in more than great interaction for all actors, which the Opera here at home can really be proud of. May he return as soon as possible.
Knud Arne Jürgensen, POV International
Nicholas McGegan takes credit for his musical direction, and both choir and orchestra contribute to making this afternoon at the Opera a complete pleasure.
Michael Søby, CPH Culture
Conductor Nicholas McGegan lures high musical quality out of Det Kgl. Kapel, which is a delight all the way through Anne Barslev's new staging of Mozart's 1786 classic, which is still one of the opera repertoire's most beloved comedies.
Det Sku' Du Se
…it is worth sticking with Det Kongelige Kappel under the baton of Nicholas McGegan , who had chosen a very transparent interpretation of the score, which, like the scenography, gave optimal space to the many good singers. In addition, McGegan had contributed some contemporary ornamentation from Haydn's hand to the various arias, e.g. in Cherubino's canzone Voi che sapete – it was then normal for the singers to add extra notes and cadences to the arias not recorded in the score by the composer's hand. A welcome refreshment to rediscover that tradition.
aarsskriftet
Nicholas McGegan conducted brilliantly and gave plenty of room for the singers.
sklassisk
It is a scoop for the Royal Theater to have had the British conductor Nicholas McGegan conduct this new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro . McGegan is not just one of the grand old men of historical construction practice . He is also – in the best sense of the word – a classical opera conductor who serves the singers, the orchestra and Mozart without putting himself at the center. Here he stands in contrast to some of today's star conductors, who would rather attract attention by means of furious tempos and exaggerated accents than they would support the other actors.
…The humor and darkness that McGegan brings out of the score is only exceptionally realized on stage.
…The Marriage of Figaro is worth experiencing for Nicholas McGegan's masterful direction and for the young team of singers who give the performance energy and a tone of irresistible freshness.
Magnus Tessing Schneider, Peripeti
Giulio Cesare
Blackwater Valley Opera, May 2024
The 25-strong Irish Baroque Orchestra, steered by conductor Nicholas McGegan, interprets the rhythmically lively score with equal parts brio and aching finesse.
Ian Patterson, THEATRE NEWS - 4* Review
McGegan’s band played with a cultured bounciness, unafraid to take things strikingly slowly in the deeper arias, the virtuoso solos admirably done.
Robert Thicknesse, OPERA NOW - 4* Review
The Irish Baroque Orchestra, under the confident, subtle baton of its conductor Nicholas McGegan , an expert on 18th century baroque music and music director of the renowned Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale for 34 years, performed Handel's fantastically beautiful music on original instruments.
Dr. Charles E. Ritterband, KLASSIK BEGEISTERT
Creed and the company show themselves very much alive to the ironies that sit alongside the darker strands of this work, and there is plenty of smart theatricality to enjoy, with the chorus put to good use as ‘rent-a-crowd’ extras for both sides of the story. It is a luxury to have a fuller-sized ensemble than is usually heard for productions of early opera here, directed superbly from the harpsichord by Nicholas McGegan.
Michael Lee, GOLDEN PLEC
Handel Deborah with the NDR Radiophilharmonie
Hannover, April 2024
Nicholas McGegan enters the stage in St. Johannis to great acclaim … He fulfilled the task of bringing the festival motto ‘Kaleidoscope’ to life … McGegan shapes the sound of the orchestra and choir … he creates musical greatness … [connecting] the individual scenes and thus making the plot extremely alive.
Von Udo Hinz, Goettinger Tageblatt
St John Passion with Cantata Collective (CD)
AVIE Records, June 2023
The recording, made in concert at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley in March 2022, captures an intimate, detailed, and warm acoustic. It’s billed as a “live” recording yet the audience is silent throughout. In all, this is a beautifully performed and recorded St. John Passion that gives full measure to the work’s remarkable synthesis of devotional and theatrical elements.
Ken Melzer, Early Music America
…the overall experience of this exceptionally well-recorded live performance is one of attending a highly meaningful church service even if one does not happen to be a member of the particular denomination for which the music was created.
InfoDad.com
The live sound engineering is marvelous, making the choir sound like a much larger group (there is no applause) and defining big spaces where the singers have room to define the text closely.
James Manheim, AllMusic Review
Mozart Violinkonzerte Nr. 1-5 / Gil Shaham, SWR Symphonieorchester/Nicholas McGegan
SWR MUSIC SWR19113CD / May 2022
Pair Gil Shaham with a versatile orchestra directed by such an enlightened musician as Nicholas McGegan and the outcome is a pragmatic hybrid of historical and traditional performance styles
Robin Stowell, The Strad
Early Horn Concertos (CD)
Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Alec Frank-Gemmill (BIS)
Nicholas McGegan is equally at home in this repertory, meanwhile. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra play with wonderful freshness and finesse, and there’s a flawless sense of ensemble between Frank-Gemmill and the solo strings in the Sinfonia da camera. An exceptional disc.
Tim Ashley, Gramophone
This is an outstanding collection, in which Frank-Gemmill’s stratospheric virtuosity, on three different instruments, is elegantly counterpointed by Nicholas McGegan’s buoyantly sympathetic direction.
Julian Haylock, BBC Music Magazine
La Gloria di primavera (CD)
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Nicholas McGegan leads his chorus and period orchestra in nicely polished, stylistically assured performances
George Loomis, Opera Magazine
The Seven Ages of Shakespeare with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Birmingham Symphony Hall, June 2016
If any conductor can make a programme like this fly, it’s Nicholas McGegan. [...] He opened Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor overture with a radiant sweep of sound, drawing the string tone up from the basses with a batonless wave of the hand, then bouncing up and down like he was mounted on springs as the Allegro hurtled away. [...] Sullivan’s bubbly Merchant of Venice suite was cut down to a mere three movements, and McGegan positively supercharged them. [...] McGegan [...] can hold an audience breathless. [...] McGegan, beaming with enjoyment and looking at times as if he was about to start bodypopping, draped violin lines artlessly over Purcell’s [excerpts from The Fairy Quuen] melancholy plaints, detonated volleys of trumpets and timpani, and shaped big, dramatic dynamic contrasts.
Richard Bratby, theartsdesk.com
Haydn, Mozart and Leclair with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
City Halls Glasgow, January 2016
I have never known conductor Nicholas McGegan turn out a dull, lifeless or routine performance with an orchestra. It’s simply not in his nature. He’s a dynamo, a true animator, an energiser and an ignition point from which music can take off and take wing. McGegan and his orchestra, absolutely flying and in terrific form, roared through Leclair’s Scylla et Glaucus and a fabulous account of Haydn’s Military Symphony, with nice musical control of the seismic percussiveness that can be too-easily overwhelming.
The Herald
It required a change in game plan for an orchestra more used to the opulence of later music, evident in a scaled-down string section that embraced the required style – clean, gutsy playing from front desk to back that gave buoyancy and precision, in particular to Haydn’s Symphony No 100 (the Military), which oozed wit, theatre and charisma. Thrusting exuberance ignited the percussive eccentricities of the Haydn symphony, and brought thrills and spills to Jean-Marie Leclair’s music from Scylla et Glaucus, tightly packaged in McGegan’s own concert arrangement.
The Scotsman
These photos are available to be downloaded.
Right click on a desired image and select the "Save Link As" option.
