Nicolas Ellis
Conductor
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Canadian conductor Nicolas Ellis is the Music Director of the Orchestre National de Bretagne and the Principal Guest Conductor of Les Violons du Roy. He is also the Artistic Director of the Orchestre de l’Agora, which he founded in Montreal in 2013.
With the Orchestre National de Bretagne, Nicolas presents a wide range of works to discover, starting with those by Iranian composer Golfam Khayam. He brings the orchestra into the great classical repertoire with pieces such as Beethoven’s Eroica and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, and invites distinguished collaborators such as pianist Alexandre Tharaud and the Babineau-Chartrand duo, with whom he developed a project around traditional Québécois music. He also seeks to go beyond the conventional classical concert format by collaborating with the Théâtre National de Bretagne, where he will present all of the incidental music from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, alongside young actors from the TNB in a staging by Arthur Nauzyciel.
This season, he brings together the Orchestre de l’Agora and Les Violons du Roy on the same stage for the first time, accompanying soprano Sarah Dufresne, who will perform Mozart arias written for the Weber sisters, for whom Mozart had great affection. The Orchestre de l’Agora’s commitment to the Montreal community continues with a monthly concert series at Bordeaux prison, as well as a major concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the FACE School, in collaboration with young musicians from the school’s music program.
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Nicolas is increasingly sought after as a guest conductor by many orchestras across Europe and North America. In the 2025–2026 season, he will make his debut with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. He will conduct Shostakovich’s First Symphony with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, as well as works by Johanna Müller-Hermann and Sofia Goubaïdoulina with the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine. He will also lead Poulenc’s Les Animaux modèles with the Polish Radio Orchestra, and Handel’s Messiah with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. He will return to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, where he will conduct a symphony by Justin Williams, who is also the orchestra’s Assistant Principal Viola.
In Canada, he will conduct Trois femmes de légendes by Mélanie Bonis with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony with the Victoria Symphony.
In his free time, Nicolas enjoys running and keeps a close eye on the latest results of Stade Rennais in Ligue 1.
Nicolas Ellis is the recipient of the Fernand Lindsay Career Grant (2017) and was awarded the Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer (2021).
12/2025 - PLEASE DESTROY ANY PREVIOUSLY DATED MATERIALS.
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April 6, 2021: Nicolas Ellis Wins 2021-2022 Goyer Mécénat Musica Prize, Worth $125,000, to Support an "emerging collaborative artist".
-La PresseNovember 9, 2017: Nicolas Ellis wins Fernand-Lindsay Career Scholarship worth $50,000
-The Ludwig Van Montreal -
NICE DOUBLE FOR NICOLAS ELLIS AND LES VIOLONS DU ROY
“Supple, delicate, pulsating, Nicolas Ellis has shown great maturity in the art of creating a very elastic internal dynamic to musical phrases without ever rushing them with jolts or effects.”
– Christopher Huss, Le DevoirTHE ORCHESTER MÉTROPOLITAIN, BEYOND EXPECTATIONS
“Subsequently, Nicolas Ellis, who can also be seen as an excellent pianist in the Dvorak Quintet in a "benefit webcast" of his Orchester de l'Agora , conducted And So Be Changed to Lightning in the End, by Kelly Marie Murphy, and Don Juan, by Strauss, with an impressive grip and bearing. We admire, for example, his respect for the resonance of the room in Don Juan. As for Murphy's score, what an orchestral tour de force, which could make it an appreciable Canadian calling card during a future tour! This high-quality contemporary work was reassuring to hear at a time when a sudden and frenetic race for symbols in programming tends to turn some corners in terms of substance and quality.”
– Christopher Huss, Le DevoirNICOLAS ELLIS AND THE ORCHESTER DE L'AGORA GAVE A POSITIVELY STUNNING CONCERT ON THURSDAY
“The program was courageous, all the music being after 1940, even if that of Ichmouratov sometimes sounds like Tchaikovsky. Basically, the evening leaves you speechless. Such a combination of talents deployed, both by the conductor and by the musicians and the young composer Francis Battah, cannot leave you indifferent.”
– Christopher Huss, Le Devoir