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.
Highlights of his 22/23 guest bookings in North America include his return to the Hollywood Bowl and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the St Louis Symphony Orchestra performing the Mendelssohn Walpurgisnacht (in English) and selections from Beethoven's Egmont. In Europe, he appears with Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Royal Northern Sinfonia in a programme that brings together Bach’s Magnificat in D Major and Caroline Shaw’s Is a Rose, performed by singers from the Samling Institute for Young Artists.
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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
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Chorus
The Sage Gateshead, April 2015
Conductor Nicholas McGegan's gestures were economic, but each counted as he kept an eye on the bigger picture [...] It was a breathtaking performance that fulfilled every expectation.
Gavin Engelbrecht, The Northern Echo
Mozart at the Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles Philharmonic
McGegan kept the all-Mozart concept fresh by dipping into some relatively underexposed territory in Mozart's vast catalog, investing everything with the zesty tempos and life-affirming spirits for which he is known.
Richard S. Ginell, The Los Angeles Times
Vivaldi, Piazzola and Handel at the Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles Philharmonic
McGegan, who makes everything he conducts look as if it's more fun than anything, simply jumped in, and Chalifour and the small string orchestra had no choice but to follow.
Mark Swed, The Los Angeles Times
Handel Acis and Galatea (arr. by Mozart)
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Mr. McGegan and the Philharmonia forces were a constant source of life and sensuous colour.
Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times
Under the rousing direction of Nicholas McGegan, [Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra's] glorious rendering of the music, with a terrific assist from the Philharmonia Chorale, had us transfixed throughout.
Carla Escoda, The Huffington Post
The enormous pleasure of this production is in the effusively engaging conducting of McGegan and his fine period instrument orchestra and chorus.
Mark Swed, The Los Angeles Times
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