Andris Nelsons

Andris Nelsons is Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Celebrated for his profound musicality, inspiring leadership, and an instinctive connection with audiences and musicians alike, the five-time Grammy Award-winning conductor is firmly established as one of the most sought-after artists of our time. 

Andris Nelsons’ 2026-27 season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra includes a four-week Tchaikovsky cycle at Symphony Hall encompassing all six symphonies and a concert performance of his opera The Queen of Spades. He leads BSO commissions including the world premiere of Elena Firsova’s completion of Sofia Gubaidulina’s final work, Prologue; the American premiere of Spanish composer Francisco Coll’s Piano Concerto with soloist Kirill Gerstein; and a performance of BSO Composer Chair Carlos Simon’s Double Concerto with violinist Hilary Hahn and cellist Seth Parker Woods. In spring 2027, Nelsons and the BSO embark on a European tour with residencies in London, Hamburg and Paris. Joined by pianist Lang Lang, they perform programs pairing Stravinsky’s ballet suites with Beethoven’s first two piano concertos. In April, Nelsons leads the BSO in Carnegie Hall concerts featuring young breakout violinist Himari and superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma. 

A passionate educator, Nelsons serves as Head of Conducting of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Music Center, mentoring the next generation of conductors and orchestral musicians through rehearsals, concerts, and individual masterclasses. Continuing an initiative launched three seasons ago, in March 2027 Nelsons welcomes the summer 2026 Tanglewood Conducting Fellows to share the BSO podium in all-Beethoven concerts marking their Symphony Hall and BSO conducting debuts. 

Nelsons began his tenure in Boston with the 2014-2015 season and in Leipzig in February 2018. Since then, Nelsons has forged an unprecedented artistic partnership between the two orchestras, including joint programming, commissions, recordings, touring projects, musician exchanges, and educational initiatives. A defining milestone for this pioneering alliance was marked in 2025 with the Shostakovich Festival Leipzig to mark the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death. The festival brought the two orchestras together for a landmark celebration of the composer’s music, centered on the complete symphonic cycle. The BSO and Andris Nelsons hosted the GHO in Boston in October 2019 for concerts at Symphony Hall including a program featuring members of both orchestras. 

As an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, Nelsons continues to build an acclaimed discography spanning the core symphonic repertoire and beyond. In February 2026, his recording with the BSO and pianist Yuja Wang of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie won the Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. His multiple Grammy-winning Shostakovich cycle with the BSO was released in May 2025 as a box set including the complete symphonies and concertos along with the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The 2026-27 season sees the release of Nelsons’ highly anticipated complete Mahler symphony cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic—only the second complete cycle ever recorded by the orchestra—as well as the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Lang Lang and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Together with acclaimed recording cycles devoted to Bruckner, Beethoven, and the orchestral works of Richard Strauss (featuring recordings by both the BSO and GHO), these releases have established Nelsons as one of the foremost recorded interpreters of the symphonic repertoire. Most recently, he was named OPUS KLASSIK’s 2026 Conductor of the Year for his Mendelssohn cycle with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. 

This season, Nelsons leads the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig on a European tour in November 2026 with cellist Gautier Capuçon, including concerts in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The second half of the GHO season is devoted to the orchestra’s celebrations marking the bicentennial of Beethoven’s death. Nelsons opens the Beethoven Festival Leipzig in May 2027 with the complete symphony cycle alongside the Violin Concerto and Triple Concerto. The Beethoven celebrations continue with a European tour to Liepaja, Riga, Paris, London, Hamburg, Bonn, Essen and Düsseldorf, where Lang Lang joins Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester for Beethoven’s Third, Fourth and Fifth piano concertos. 

Born in Riga in 1978, Andris Nelsons began his career at seventeen as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra whilst studying conducting. Outside music, Nelsons is a keen collector of perfumes and holds a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwondo. His deeply held commitment to musical excellence is reflected in the receipt of numerous professional accolades throughout his career, including being made an Honorary Member of the Vienna Philharmonic in 2026, and the award of an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for services to music.