Un violon hors du temps avec Kerson Leong

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.

Kerson Leong has been described as “not just one of Canada’s greatest violinists but one of the greatest violinists, period” (Toronto Star). Forging a unique path since his First Prize win at the International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in 2010, he continues to win over colleagues and audiences alike with “a mixture of spontaneity and mastery, elegance, fantasy, intensity that makes his sound recognizable from the first notes” (Le Monde).

His latest album, featuring the Britten and Bruch violin concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Patrick Hahn for Alpha Classics, was released to widespread critical acclaim, including having been awarded Editor’s Choice by Gramophone, The Strad Recommends by The Strad, and the Choc de Classica by Classica as well as five-star recommendations from the Sunday Times and Diapason among others.

His 23/24 season includes solo performances with the Arkansas Symphony, Baton Rouge Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony, Regina Symphony, La Sinfonia de Lanaudiere, I Musici de Montreal and Violons du Roy. Recent season highlights include solo performances with such ensembles as the Royal, Oslo, Brussels, Kansai, and Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, the Seattle, Singapore, Toronto, Istanbul, Toledo, Montreal, Tucson, Bilkent, and Wuppertal Symphony Orchestras, a tour of Sweden with the Camerata Nordica, a recital tour of the Midwestern United States, and recording John Rutter’s Visions with the composer himself and the Aurora Chamber Orchestra, after giving its world premiere in London, UK.

As a sought-after soloist, he was hand-picked by Yannick Nézet-Séguin to be his artist-in-residence with the Orchestre Métropolitain during the 18/19 season and has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Wigmore Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. As a passionate chamber musician, he has performed at such international festivals and concert series as the Verbier Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Flâneries musicales de Reims, and Bergen International Festival among others.

Passionate about pedagogy and music outreach, he has been invited to give masterclasses and teach at various festivals and universities including the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Gustav Mahler Academy, the Domaine Forget Festival Academy, the University of Ottawa, and Dalhousie University among others. Fostering a significant audience away from the concert hall as well, he is cementing his noteworthy role in reaching young people, aspiring musicians, and potential music lovers alike with his art in creative and engaging ways on social media. He is an associate artist of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, where he was mentored by Augustin Dumay.

He has always been keen on making connections between music and other fields. Ever since his dad started introducing him to physics concepts about string resonance, they have strongly influenced his playing and philosophy on sound production. Together with his dad, he has given lectures about this subject in places such as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Barratt-Due Music Institute in Oslo, and various universities in California.

Kerson performs on the ex Bohrer, Baumgartner Guarneri del Gesu courtesy of Canimex Inc, Drummondville (Quebec), Canada.