Kent Nagano is seriously in demand. Since 2006 the Japanese-American conductor has been music director of the Bavaria State Opera, one of Germany’s biggest opera houses. The Californian also has other projects across the world, from New York to Tokyo. Nagano is known as an intellectual and analytical musician, who has discovered the sound of a new and objective generation. His willingness to conduct debut pieces has turned him into an icon of new music.

Kent Nagano is one of classical music’s busiest and most sought-after stars. The American of Japanese heritage has been the acting head music conductor of the Bavarian State Opera since 2006. In addition, he has pursued countless other engagements as a conductor worldwide.

Born in California’s Morro Bay on Nov. 22, 1951, Kent Nagano was the child of an architect. His mother, Ruth Okamoto, was a microbiologist and pianist. He was raised on a farm without television, movies or a stereo. There was, however, a piano and plenty of live music to be heard at home. In this way, the young Kent became comfortable with classical music early on. His mother also taught him viola and clarinet. As an 8-year-old, Kent became the conductor of a church choir.

At the urging of his parents, he studied sociology and music at Oxford and in Santa Cruz. He had wanted to be a lawyer. At 21, however, he decided to focus solely on music. He spent 1977 to 1979 studying composition and orchestral conducting in San Francisco.

After the conclusion of his studies, Nagano worked as an assistant conductor at the Opera Company of Boston. Following several musical engagements he - in 1984 - become first an assistant at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was there that he one night was asked to step in for the orchestra’s chief conductor and conduct Gustav Mahler’s “Ninth Symphony” without any previous rehearsals. The following year Nagano received a scholarship for advanced studies with Pierre Boulez and Leonard Bernstein. Through Boulez, he became a guest conductor for the Paris Special Ensembles for New Music, “InterContemporain,” in 1986.

Two years later, he was named head conductor of the Opéra du Lyon, following in the footsteps of John Eliot Gardiner. A post he kept until 2000. In 1990, he in addition became first guest conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra, and the next year also musical director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester.

In 2000 he took over the head conductor post at the German Symphony Orchestra, previously held by Wladimir Ashkenazy. He received star reviews in the press regarding his positive influence on the music scene in Berlin and Germany. As the German newspaper “Die Welt am Sonntag” wrote in 2003, “Whoever gets Kent Nagano gains the image of a brilliant music interpreter.”

In 2006, Nagano became head conductor of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

Nagano is married to the pianist Mari Kodoma and has a daughter, Karin Kei. Recently, he relocated with his family from Paris to Munich.

(Re-broadcast from 27 December 2009)