Nicolas Ellis
“This young chameleon musician is a phenomenon.”
– Christophe Huss, Le Devoir
Nicolas Ellis is Music Director of the Orchestre National de Bretagne and Principal Guest Conductor of Les Violons du Roy. He is also Artistic Director of the Orchestre de l’Agora, which he founded in Montreal in 2013.
Nicolas is one of the most active conductors on the Canadian scene. He has conducted the Vancouver Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Orchestre de chambre I Musici de Montréal, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Opéra de Québec and the Opéra de Montréal. Internationally, he has appeared with the Graz Opera and the San Diego Symphony.
In the 2024-2025 season, he will make his debuts with the Tampere Philharmonic in Finland, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and will conduct a new production of The Magic Flute at the Opéra de Rennes. In Canada, he makes his debut with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and returns to the Orchestre Métropolitain and Opéra de Montréal in a production of L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.
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Among the musical encounters that have strongly influenced him are those with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain, with whom he worked as Artistic Collaborator, a position he held from 2018 to 2023, and with Raphaël Pichon, conductor of the Ensemble Pygamlion, for whom he was assistant conductor during opera productions at the Opéra-Comique, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the Salzburg Festival.
At the helm of his Orchestre de l’Agora, Nicolas conducts a rich repertoire ranging from Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea to Mahler’s 3rd Symphony. At the heart of the Agora’s mission, Nicolas has set up musical creation projects with teenagers living with mental health problems, educational music workshops for children, and a monthly concert series at Montreal’s Bordeaux Prison. Still with l’Agora, he also presented the 3rd edition of the Gala de la Terre in June 2024, a major fund-raising event for environmental organizations working in Canada. The concert featured Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony and Le Choeur des bélugas, a new work by composer Claudie Bertounesque using beluga whales songs recorded in the St-Laurent River.
Nicolas Ellis is the recipient of the 2017 Fernand Lindsay Career Grant and was also awarded the Prix Goyer Mécénat Musica 2021.
