Erik Nielsen
Conductor
© Michael Novak
Erik Nielsen's back at Oper Frankfurt, where he worked for many years as a coach and Kapellmeister, and where he returned in recent seasons for new productions of Guilio Cesare in Eggito and Lachenmann’s Little Matchgirl, the first performances in Germany of Reimann's Medea (available on CD - OehmsClassics), Billy Budd and Norma, and the first new Aida in Frankfurt for many years, for this new production of George Benjamin's Written on Skin. Born in America he was chief conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra (2015 - 2024) and the Tirol Festival in Erl (2022 - 2024), where productions including a wonderful new Ring des Nibelungen. Other important engagements have included Tannhäuser at Houston Grand Opera and Theater Magdeburg, The Love for Three Oranges, Rusalka, Norma and Pelléas et Mélisande at the Semperoper in Dresden, Salome, Peter Grimes and Trojahn’s Orest at Zurich Opera, the world premiere of Manfred Trojahn’s Eurydice – Die Liebenden blind (The Blind Lovers) at the Nationale Opera Amsterdam, Peter Grimes, Das Rheingold and Křenek’s Karl V at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, The Rake’s Progress in Budapest and Tristan und Isolde in Bilbao. Later in the 2025/26 season he conducts Parsifal at the Aalto Theater in Essen and returns to the Semperoper in Dresden, for Aida. He was Music Director of Theater Basel from 2016 - 2018. Concert work has taken him to places including Oslo, Manchester, Stockholm, Madrid, Strasbourg, Lisbon, Basel, the Aspen Music Festival and the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He joined the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan Academy as a harpist after studying harp, oboe and conducting in New York and Philadelphia.