Credit: Marc Brenner

Nicholas Chalmers

CONDUCTOR

Senior Associate Artist: Royal Ballet and Opera, London
Principal Conductor: National Youth Choir 18-25
Associate Conductor, Learning: BBC Singers
Fernside Chair of Choral Conducting: Royal Academy of Music, London

Representation: General Management

Educated at the University of Oxford and Piacenza Conservatoire, Nicholas Chalmers is one of the leading conductors in the UK. His energy and vision have seen the establishment of highly successful artistic and education projects and his work impacts thousands of young people each year. Nicholas is driven by a passion to bring classical music to the next generation and to ensure that people in areas of under provision have better access to training and engagement in the performing arts.

From 2011, Nicholas was conductor of Northern Ireland Opera and established the chorus and partnership with the Ulster Orchestra and conducted The Medium, Tosca (Best Opera – Irish Times Theatre Awards), The Turn of the Screw, The Bear, Macbeth, The Flying Dutchman, Salome, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte, Powder Her Face and Noye’s Fludde (Belfast Zoo, Beijing and Shanghai).

In 2013, Nicholas founded Nevill Holt Opera and established an award-winning education and associate artists programme. The company introduced countless young people to opera in the East Midlands and its year-round education programme works with schools across the region. The rapid success of the company under his 10-year leadership led to a new opera house being built at Nevill Holt in Leicestershire. It opened in 2018 with Le nozze di Figaro. The exquisite new building has won plaudits for its acoustic design and reached the final of the RIBA Stirling prize in 2019. With Nevill Holt Opera, Nicholas has conducted The Magic Flute, La bohème, The Turn of the Screw, Carmen, Rigoletto, The Elixir of Love, Tosca, Noye’s Fludde, Le Nozze di Figaro, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cosí fan tutte and La traviata.

Nicholas works with leading orchestras and opera companies in the UK and overseas: Royal Northern Sinfonia; Britten Sinfonia; Manchester Camerata; BBC Concert Orchestra; The CBSO; The Ulster Orchestra; The English Chamber Orchestra; London Mozart Players; English National Opera, China Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra; Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra; Zurich Opera; Opera National de Lyon. He has also held posts at Chichester and St Paul’s Cathedrals and at Westminster Abbey.

Nicholas is a Senior Associate Artist of the Royal Ballet and Opera and made his conducting debut there with Bernstein’s ‘Trouble in Tahiti’ and ‘A Quiet Place’ in autumn 2024.

Nicholas is the Associate Conductor, Learning of the BBC Singers and made his BBC Proms conducting debut in 2020 with the group. With the BBC Singers, he has programmed and conducted numerous broadcasts and concerts throughout the UK and helped establish the Singers’ partnership with youth choral groups in Stratford East, the future home of the BBC performing groups. In 2023 Nicholas became Principal Conductor of the National Youth Choir 18-25 and in September he 2024 he took up the role of Fernside Chair of Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Promoters please note: We update our biographies regularly and ask that they are not altered without permission. For updated versions, please e-mail: Jessica Kinney

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Nicholas Chalmers Showreel

News

Nicholas Chalmers celebrates Christmas with National Youth Voices

December 22nd, 2024

With members drawn from the National Youth Choir (18-25), National Youth Voices offers an opportunity for the most talented young singers in the UK to sing at the highest level. Nicholas Chalmers’ drive and inspiration to work with young performers is evident here in this joyful programme from the newly branded Smith Square Hall Christmas…Read more ›

Nicholas Chalmers debuts at Royal Opera House

October 10th, 2024

Senior Associate Artist of the Royal Ballet and Opera, Nicholas Chalmers makes his conducting debut with the company at the Linbury Theatre 10 – 24 October 2024 in a Bernstein double bill Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place. These operas, inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s own life and written in 1951 and 1983 respectively have…Read more ›

Nicholas Chalmers joins JBM for General Management

September 26th, 2024

JBM is delighted to announce the signing of conductor Nicholas Chalmers. With a number of leading roles on the British music scene Nicholas is a dynamic and engaging musician. His energy and vision have seen the establishment of highly successful artistic and education projects and his work impacts thousands of young people each year. Nicholas…Read more ›

Reviews

2024 A Quiet Place/Trouble in Tahiti – Royal Opera at the Linbury Theatre

“Nicholas Chalmers gets sharp playing from the instrumental ensemble. A Quiet Place is unlikely to come around in a stronger performance than this.

The Financial Times (Richard Fairman)

“making a welcome Covent Garden debut is conductor Nicholas Chalmers, who ensures high musical standard throughout’

The Stage (George Hall)

“It’s a fidgety score and the conductor Nicholas Chalmers keeps a cool head…you’re unlikely to see a better case made for A Quiet Place”

The Spectator (Richard Bratby)

‘Under conductor Nicholas Chalmers, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House excelled in the Garth Edwin Sunderland’s reduced orchestration for A Quiet Place’

Bachtrack (Stephen Pritchard)

“In the pit, Nicholas Chalmers and the small orchestra made a terrific contribution, certainly there was nothing ‘reduced’ about this performance. A Quiet Place has some significant orchestral interludes where the orchestra came into its own. This was Chalmer’s debut conducting a main stage production for the company and I do hope we will be seeing a lot more of him”

Planet Hugill (Robert Hugill)

2022 La bohème – Nevill Holt Opera and Manchester Camerata

“In the pit, the Manchester Camerata plays with impressive tone and total engagement, while festival artistic director and conductor Nicholas Chalmers summons up all the vitality and momentum required for Puccini to hold the audience in his tight emotional grip. Nevill Holt is lucky to have such a superb musician at the helm.”

The Stage

“Together with the excellent Manchester Camerata, conducted by NHO’s Artistic Director Nicholas Chalmers, the piece at times feels faultless.”

The Telegraph

“The Manchester Camerata was in the pit, combining impressive tone with total engagement and superintended by festival artistic director and conductor Nicholas Chalmers, who drew from Puccini’s score all the vitality and momentum required for the piece to hold its listeners in a tight emotional grip: he is a significant asset to the festival.”

Opera Now

2021 La traviata – Nevill Holt Opera and Manchester Camerata

“Nicholas Chalmers and the Manchester Camerata gave an excellent account of the score, romantic without being overdone, well accented and energetic without dissolving into caricature.”

Bachtrack

2020 First night of the BBC Proms – The BBC Singers

“Then came an hour of music that moved by degrees from radiant stillness through reflective quietness to blazing triumph…sung with immaculate tuning and beautiful tone by the BBC Singers.”

The Telegraph

“The BBC Singers, conducted by Nicholas Chalmers…this small professional choir can hardly be bettered in present-day polyphony, singing ravishingly.”

The Sunday Times

“After that, Eric Whitacres choral piece Sleep…was lusciously delivered from the stalls by the socially-distanced BBC Singers under Nicholas Chalmers.”

The Times

“…the simply stunning performances that Chalmers and the singers gave us (all from memory), giving a real edge to Whitacre’s harmonies, meant that the short work had great intensity.”

Planet Hugill

“…they (the BBC Singers) sang exquisitely under Nicholas Chalmers, their spacing in the stalls visually striking and atmospherically complemented by the beams of light above.”

The Arts Desk

“Eric Whitacre’s motet Sleep, sung by the BBC Singers, and Aaron Copland’s Quiet City were included for their resonance with the Covid experience, and both were performed with sensitivity and commitment.”

The Guardian

“With the eighteen members of the BBC Singers positioned in the stalls and conductor Nicholas Chalmers spot-lit in the centre of the arena, there was an otherworldliness about the performance before it even began. Intonation was immaculate; tone ranged from cool cotton to rich velvet; Chalmers kept the iambic tetrameter of Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening’ breathing steadily…”

Seen and Heard International

2019 A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten – Nevill Holt Opera

“[Nicholas Chalmers] conducts both of this year’s [Nevill Holt Opera] offerings – I heard A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he led in robust fashion, drawing lively and affectionate playing from Britten Sinfonia”

The Telegraph

“A terrific ensemble achievement, and Chalmers’s conducting of the outstanding Britten Sinfonia lent the music a special magic in the warm, woody acoustic”

The Sunday Times

“Deftly conducted by Nicholas Chalmers, Britten Sinfonia (what a luxury as a pit band) use their slim string numbers to bring translucency and a spare, angular beauty to Britten’s score”

The Arts Desk

“Most of the magic on opening night emanated from this pit. Britten Sinfonia, under Nevill Holt Opera’s artistic director Nicholas Chalmers, teased out every icy sul ponticello and slithering glissando in Britten’s brilliantly orchestrated score. The precision of the woodwind and brass playing was superb, resounding with clarity”

Bachtrack

“The show can rely on the exceptional musical values maintained by Nevill Holt’s artistic director, conductor Nicholas Chalmers, who explores the score with an ear for fine detail as well as, in his overview, luminosity of tone: in the pit Britten Sinfonia is on wonderful form”

The Stage

“…a reading conducted with scrupulous attention to nocturnal colour by Nicholas Chalmers”

Opera Magazine

2019 Così fan tutte by Mozart – Nevill Holt Opera

“Nevill Holt’s artistic director Nicholas Chalmers demonstrated once again his gifts as a Mozartian with a reading that was beautifully paced from start to finish, with an ideal combination of subtlety and vitality, of purpose and poetry, and outstanding playing from the Royal Northern Sinfonia, especially its wind principals”

Opera Magazine

“What made the performance so special was the musical proceedings expertly overseen by Chalmers conducting the Royal Northern Sinfonia. He is a brisk but natural Mozartian, and his gift for spotting excellent young singers is a huge boon for this and other medium-scale repertoire.”

Hugh Canning – The Sunday Times

“The palm of this successful launch has to go to conductor Nicholas Chalmers and the Royal Northern Sinfonia who between them supply an ideal musical underlay, spirited in momentum and refined in texture”

George Hall – The Stage