Kent Nagano is considered one of today's outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. He will be the next Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE) in Madrid, starting in September 2026. Since the 2025/26 season he is the Principal Artistic Partner of Filarmonica Toscanini in Parma. In addition, he is committed alongside with Jan Vogler as Artistic Director of the Ring project "The Wagner Cycles" of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, of Concerto Köln since 2019, of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021, of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since 2023, and of the Würth Philharmonic since 2025. In addition, he is as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival.
As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano regularly works with leading international orchestras worldwide. 2025/26 season highlights include several projects with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Münchner Philharmoniker, Maggio Musicale, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Opéra national de Paris, and the Philharmonia Orchestra amongst others.
The 2024/25 season was Kent Nagano's final season as General Music Director in Hamburg. Highlights of tenure included opera productions such as Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov", Strauss' "Salome", performances of Sciarrino's "Venere e Adone" and Britten's "Peter Grimes", Berlioz' "Les Troyens", Berg's "Lulu", Benjamin's "Lessons in Love and Violence", and the world premiere of Hosokawa's "Stilles Meer", as well as the new production of Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" by Daniele Finzi Pasca (released on DVD by EuroArts, February 2022). Other highlights were the "Philharmonic Academy" at St. Michaelis, open-air concerts at the Rathausmarkt, and the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's "Waves" for organ and orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie. Orchestral tours with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg have taken Kent Nagano to Japan, Taiwan, China, Spain, and South America.
Previous operatic highlights include the revival of Ligeti's "Le Grand Macabre" in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in 2024, Bernstein's opera "A Quiet Place" at the Opéra national de Paris, the world premiere of Dusapin's "Il Viaggio, Dante" at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Hindemith's "Cardillac", Henze's "Die Bassariden", and the world premiere of Saariaho's "L'amour de loin" at the Salzburg Festival. Other world premieres conducted by Kent Nagano include Bernstein's "A White House Cantata" and the operas "Alice in Wonderland" by Unsuk Chin, "Three Sisters" by Peter Eötvös and "The Death of Klinghoffer" as well as the oratorio "El Niño" by John Adams.
Under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano and the Intendant of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele Jan Vogler, Wagner's "Ring" Tetralogy is being performed in the artistic context of the period in which it was composed, based on the latest findings of research into Wagner and performance practice, and integrated into an extensive supporting program as part of the multi-year project "The Wagner Cycles" of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele from 2023 to 2026. The first performance in 2023 of "Das Rheingold" took place at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele and the project has toured to Cologne, Ravello, Prague, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Lucerne, while "Die Walküre" has been performed in Prague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Hamburg, Luzern and Dresden and "Siegfried" in Prag, Paris, Cologne, Dresden and Luzern. The project continues into 2026 with performances of "Götterdämmerung".
Kent Nagano's recordings with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal on Sony Classical/Analekta include Mahler's orchestral songs with Christian Gerhaher in 2013 and a complete recording of all of Beethoven's symphonies in 2015. Decca released a recording of the North American premiere of "L'Aiglon", a rarely performed opera by Honegger and Ibert in 2016, conducted by Nagano in 2015. Further releases by Decca are "Danse Macabre" with works by Dukas, Saint-Saëns, Ives and others from 2016 as well as a recording of Bernstein's "A quiet place" from 2018 on the occasion of the composer's 100th birthday. John Adams' "Common Tones in Simple Time", "Harmonielehre" and "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" (Decca) was released in 2019, the "Lukas Passion" by Penderecki (BIS) and works by Ginastera, Bernstein and Moussa (Analekta) in 2020.
In October 2019, Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama expanded their joint recordings of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 0 E‑flat Major WoO 4, a nearly unknown work from the composer's youth, and his Rondo for Piano and Orchestra WoO 6 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The complete edition of Beethoven's piano concertos was released on the Berlin Classics label.
Kent Nagano was awarded Grammys for his recordings of Busoni's "Doktor Faust" with Opéra National de Lyon, Prokofjew's "Peter and the Wolf" with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho's "L'amour de loin" with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He has worked with labels such as BIS, Decca, Sony Classical, FARAO Classics and Analekta for many years, and has also recorded CDs for Berlin Classics, Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi and EuroArts.
To celebrate Kent Nagano's 70th birthday in 2021, a 3‑CD box set of works by Olivier Messiaen was released on the BR Klassik label. The release includes live recordings of the works "Poèmes pour Mi", "Chronochromie" and "La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ" from his concerts with the Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, demonstrating his close familiarity with Messiaen's musical language in a special way.
In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career but for his life more broadly. Among those experiences are encounters with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Donald Glaser.
In 2015 Kent Nagano published "Erwarten Sie Wunder!" also in Berlin Verlag, a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today's world. In 2019 the book was released in English by the Canadian McGill-Queen's University Press under the title "Classical Music – Expect the Unexpected" and in 2015 under "Sonnez, merveilles !" in French by Éditions du Boréal.
Kent Nagano was awarded honorary doctorates from McGill University in Montréal in 2005, the Université de Montréal in 2006, and the San Francisco State University in 2018. Since 2017, he has been a "Compagnon dans l'Ordre des arts et des lettres" of Québec, and in the fall of 2023, Kent Nagano was also awarded the title of "Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" of France. In February 2024, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President, and in June 2024 he was awarded the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor. Furthermore, Kent Nagano was the recipient of the 2024 Brahms Prize of the Brahms Society of Schleswig-Holstein.