Nathanaël Iselin

INTRODUCTION

First Prize winner and Special Prize of the Orchestra at the 8th International Jorma Panula Conducting Competition, Nathanaël Iselin is a young French conductor based in Scandinavia and the Netherlands.

RECENT AND FUTURE HIGHLIGHTS

Engagements in the 2023/2024 season included concerts with the Aarhus Symfoniorkester (Debussy’s La Mer and Bax’s Tintagel), the Kymi Sinfonietta (Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony, Schumann and Wagner), the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oulu Sinfonia (Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Debussy’s Rhapsody for Clarinet and Orchestra), the Jönköping Sinfonietta (Humperdinck, Valdridsson), and Phion, Orkest van Gelderland & Overijssel, among others. Nathanaël was an assistant conductor for François-Xavier Roth in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten w. Gürzenich Orchester Köln and an assistant conductor in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 w. the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. In May 2024, he returned to the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra for a ‘Masterpieces in Tivoli’ concert featuring works by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Later, in August 2024, he conducted a ‘Summer Classics’ concert at Tivoli alongside Mathias Hammer and Frederik Cilius. He also led the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra in a concert at the Skandeborg Festival.

At the beginning of the 2024/2025 season, Nathanaël conducted a concert with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (Marcus Paus’ Hate Songs and Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins).

Nathanaël will return to the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra for a concert (songs by Sigurd Barrett), and he will also conduct a Halloween concert with Opera Orchestre National Montpellier and will lead the Iceland Youth Symphony Orchestra in The Youth Orchestra plays Dvořak concert. In 2025 he will conduct concerts w. the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra (Debussy’s La Mer and Smetana’s The Moldau), a concert with the Odense Symphony Orchestra, a concert with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and a concert at Städtische Bühnen Osnabrück (Mendelssohn, Mozart and Bizet).

On the lyrical scene, Nathanaël regularly conducts at Opera Hedeland, Denmark, where he led fully-staged youth audience productions of Carmen and Rigoletto. He recently recorded Peter Heise’s opera Drot og Marsk. He returned in 2023 to conduct the whole production of La Cenerentola.

Nathanaël won the second prize in the German Conducting Award 2023, organized by Deutscher Musikrat in collaboration with Oper Köln, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, WDR Sinfonieorchester, WDR 3, and Kölner Philharmonie.

BIOGRAPHY

Nathanaël Iselin started his career as assistant conductor of the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra for the season 2021-2022. He was the first person to hold that position in Denmark. Shortly thereafter he won the prestigious Jorma Panula Competition in Finland. In the 2021-2022 season, Nathanaël also made his debuts with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (Bruckner’s 3rd Symphony), the Orchestre National de Montpellier (Mozart’s 31st Symphony), as well as the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye). He was then appointed Conductor in Residence of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for the 2022-2023 season. Among his engagements in Iceland were a ‘Music-loving magic’ concert, featuring music by (a.o.) Mozart, John Williams, Stravinsky; a ‘Tectonic plate boundaries’ concert, as part of the Dark Music Days contemporary festival; and a young soloists competition, featuring music by (a.o.) Wagner, Berg, Ravel. He also conducted Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique w. the Iceland National Youth Orchestra.

In the 2022-2023 season, Iselin also conducted the Odense Symfoniorkester in a concert featuring Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, Hummel’s Trumpet concerto (Victor Koch Jensen), and Dvořák’s 8th Symphony. He led the Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester in a concert for the Define Festival, featuring pieces by Adams, Ratkje, and Zappa, as well as a concert with the Aalborg Symfoniorkester in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. In the spring of 2023, Iselin conducted the Orchestre de Picardie in a series of family concerts, and the Vaasa City Orchestra in a concert featuring Beethoven’s 8th Symphony, Mozart’s 23rd Piano Concerto (Piotr Pawlak), and Sally Beamish’s Variations on a theme by Britten. In the summer of 2023, Iselin was an assistant conductor in the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s trumpet concerto HUSH and Mahler’s 9th Symphony w. the Finnish Radio Orchestra at the Helsinki Festival.

Previously he worked at the Bern Opera, Switzerland, as a second conductor and assistant for the production of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (2020). Back in 2019, he conducted the Copenhagen Philharmonic in a performance for Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark.

On various other occasions, Nathanaël had the chance to conduct such orchestras as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Singapore Symphony, the Danish Radio, the Finnish Radio, Helsinki Philharmonic, and Philharmonie Konstanz.

Nathanaël has studied orchestra conducting in four of the most prestigious music universities in Europe: the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, the Hochschule der Künste in Zürich and the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Whilst a student he has been mentored by such renowned conductors as Iván Fischer, Mariss Jansons, Fabio Luisi, Susanna Mälkki, Sakari Oramo, Michael Schønwandt, Giordano Bellincampi, Johannes Schlaefli, Thomas Søndergård, Alexander Vedernikov, Simone Young and Jaap van Zweden.

His studies at the Paris Conservatoire have given him both a love of and an insight into the music of French impressionism such as Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Ravel’s La Valse. He has lived in Switzerland, Denmark, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Finland, taking the chance to deepen his love for Finnish music – Sibelius and Rautavaara in particular.

As a percussionist, he has performed with the Ensemble Intercontemporain-CNSMDP, the Limoges Opera, and the Nouvelle Europe Orchestra, led by conductors such as David Zinman, Dennis Russell Davies, and Matthias Pintscher.