Cameron Crozman et le génie des Lumières

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 Ellis 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 makes his debuts with the Tampere Philharmonic in Finland, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and conducts 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.

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 Ellis 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 Ellis 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.

“With a rich imagination and a keen mind” (Diapason Magazine), Canadian cellist Cameron Crozman leads an active performing career as a soloist and chamber musician in Canada, the USA, and Europe. He has appeared as a soloist with the Orchestre National d'Ile-de-France (Paris), Montreal, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and Vancouver Island Symphonies among others, and performances have taken him everywhere from the Philharmonie de Paris and the Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, to the Qidi Vidi Brewery of St. John’s, Newfoundland. An avid collaborator and chamber musician, Cameron Crozman shares the stage with eminent artists such as James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, Louis Lortie, Gérard Caussé, James Campbell, and members of the Ébène, New Zealand, and Penderecki String Quartets.

Winner of the 2021 Canada Council for the Arts Virginia Parker Prize, the Council’s largest award for emerging classical musicians, Cameron Crozman was CBC/Radio-Canada’s 2019 Classical Revelation artist and a laureate of Gautier Capuçon’s Classe d’Excellence at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris.

Cameron’s debut album, Cavatine, recorded on the ca. 1696 “Bonjour” Stradivarius cello with pianist Philip Chiu, was released in 2019 and described by the French publication Classica Magazine as displaying “technical perfection with a personal style that leaves us wanting to hear more.” He has since recorded a number of CDs for the labels ATMA Classique in Canada and Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo in Monaco.

His most recent release from May 2024 of the Haydn Cello Concertos and Jacques Hétu’s Rondo performed with Les Violons du Roy and conductor Nicolas Ellis has garnered international praise. Cameron’s performances are broadcast on CBC, BBC, RTÉ Radio, Radio France, and Medici.tv.

Deeply committed to the music of today, Cameron Crozman is active in leading projects commissioning and premiering new music by some of Canada’s most recognized composers including Alexina Louie, Allan Gordon Bell, Liam Ritz, James O’Callaghan, and Kelly-Marie Murphy.

After studies in Canada with Paul Pulford, Cameron was a student at the Paris Conservatoire and received his Prix de violoncelle with highest honours studying in the class of Michel Strauss and chamber music with Claire Désert and Ami Flammer. In 2018, he received a one year mentorship with violinist James Ehnes as part of the André-Bourbeau award from the Jeunesses Musicales Canada.

Passionate about teaching the next generation, he has been invited to give masterclasses at the Académie Rainier III in Monaco, Lawrence University (Wisconsin), University of Montreal, Conservatorio Superior de Música Joaquín Rodrigo Valencia, and the Escola Superior de Music de Lisboa, among others.

Cameron Crozman is the co-founder of ClassicalValley, a festival bringing together chamber music and wine in Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada, and the artistic director of chamber music for the Edeta Arts International Festival in Llíria, Spain, designated a Creative City of Music by the UNESCO. Along with pianist Meagan Milatz, he produces a series of chamber music concerts in Montreal called “HausMusique” in one of North America’s landmark Art Deco spaces, the Grande Salle of 9th floor of the Eaton Centre. He currently plays on a c. 1750 Gennaro Gagliano cello, generously on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Instrument Bank.