The young conductor Nicolas Ellis, 32, will be the first guest conductor of Les Violons du Roy from the 2023-2024 season. He will lead the Goldberg Variations, by Johann Sebastian Bach, from 24 November. Mr. Ellis will also have to contribute “to the stability and continuity of the artistic team”, according to the Violons du Roy, while the English musical director, Jonathan Cohen, is more and more coveted abroad.
For the next three seasons, Mr. Ellis will lead several Les Violons du Roy programs, both during the regular season and during festivals and tours.
Nicolas Ellis has been collaborating with this chamber orchestra since 2018. Mr. Ellis then entered the direction of the orchestra as guest conductor, replacing first Bernard Labadie, then Jonathan Cohen when the latter toured America.
Artistic collaborator of the Orchester Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nicolas Ellis was also conductor in residence at the Orchester symphonique de Québec. The young conductor, originally from Chicoutimi, will hold the house of the Violons du Roy, in a way, at a time when Jonathan Cohen is increasingly called upon by contracts outside the country.
Chef travelers
Laurent Patenaude, co-director general and responsible for the artistic administration of Les Violons du Roy, assured the To have to that the appointment of Nicolas Ellis was not a reaction to Jonathan Cohen’s recent acceptance of the position of artistic director of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston beginning in the 2023-2024 season.
“Discussions with Nicolas Ellis have been ongoing for months,” Patenaude said. That said, the fact that the director of Les Violons du Roy was insistently eyeing the position in Boston has been an open secret for many months as well.
Les Violons du Roy therefore had every interest in attracting the services of this gifted and much appreciated young Quebec conductor, who, for some unknown reason, found himself excluded from the race for the musical direction of the Orchester symphonique de Québec. (OSQ), with whom he had worked diligently and successfully during the pandemic. The OSQ makes no secret of the fact that its four aces now consist of Emilia Hoving, Jordan de Souza, Anu Tali and Clemens Schuldt.
It is indeed important for an orchestra from here to have a familiar face with which the public can really associate an institution. Mathieu Lussier, who in 2013 replaced the director of the Violons du Roy, recently testified to having noticed this phenomenon when he occupied this type of position during the absence of Bernard Labadie due to illness. He retained an audience at his concerts as much as, or more than, prestigious guest conductors.
The presence of Nicolas Ellis will therefore be extremely reassuring for musicians and music lovers. He will support a musical director between two planes. The time, perhaps the fashion for media musical tourists is passing, who wear four or five hats and are everywhere without being anywhere, except, in the background, near the orchestra that they have created themselves – in this Arcangelo case in Britain.
Nicolas Ellis will direct the Goldberg Variations for the Violons du Roy from the Bach Festival concerts, November 24 in Quebec City and November 27 in Montreal.
With Catherine Lalonde