Episode 165 Kent Nagano

Kent Nagano

Kent Nagano is one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. He will be the next chief conductor and artistic director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE) in Madrid starting in September 2026 and is the newly appointed principal artistic partner of Filarmonica Toscanini.

He has been honorary conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021 and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since 2023 and is as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival.

Kent regularly works with leading international orchestras worldwide, 2025/26 season highlights include several projects with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Maggio Musicale, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Opera de Paris, and the Philharmonia Orchestra amont others.

In 2015 Kent published "Erwarten Sie Wunder!" in Berlin Verlag, a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today's world. In 2019 the book was released in English by the Canadian McGill-Queen's University Press under the title “Classical Music - Expect the Unexpected.”

In September 2021, he published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career but for his life more broadly. Among those experiences are encounters with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Donald Glaser.

We’ll talk about both books!