Overview
Biography
Gordan Nikolitch, also spelled Gordan Nikolić, (Serbian: Гордан Николић; born 1968) is a Serbian violinist. He was the first concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra for nearly 20 years, having stepped down in October 2017 to concentrate on directing and teaching.
Gordan Nikolitch began playing the violin when he was seven. He studied at the music conservatory in Basel, Switzerland, with Jean-Jacques Kantorow. He also works regularly with the composers Witold Lutosławski, György Kurtág, Zoran Erić, James McMillan, Ryan Wigglesworth, Hans Werner Henze etc, cultivating an interest in contemporary music.
As a violinist, he participated and was awarded in many competitions, the Tibor Varga competition, Paganini competition at Genoa, Italy, Brescia and Hummel competition in Zagreb. In 1989, he became concertmaster of Orchestre d'Auvergne.
Nikolitch has been as well the leader of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and since 1997 of the London Symphony Orchestra. Prince consort professor at the Royal College of Music in London giving masterclasses at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and also teaches since 2005 at the CODARTS, Rotterdam Conservatory of Music.
In 2004 he was named artistic director of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Amsterdam, a group created in the 50es by the great concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic from the times of their conductor Willem Furthwaengler, Simon Goldberg. It was more than natural to take the same approach of directing from the concertmaster position. Since then the work with the orchestra and the hundreds of concerts played in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam have been oriented towards the development of the flexible interaction of all musicians involved. An endless exercise of empathy and interdependence. In 2017 the collaboration is extended to 2021.
Since 2007 Musical director of BandArt orchestra, considered by many as one of the most interesting orchestras today with among other performances of operas Gluck’s Orpheo, and Mozart’s Idomeneo, in festivals of Perallada, Loudwigsbourg, Luzern. The latest collaboration with OSCyL, with on the programme the Schubert “unfinished” and Bruckner 9th symphonies has been again one of the highlights saluted by an enthusiastic public and reviews.
Nikolitch shares his experience by directing many other orchestras, among them Orchestre National D'ille de France, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de chambre de Geneve, Philharmonie Antwerpen, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Camerata etc.
He plays a violin made by Paul Belin fecit anno 2016, a bow by F.X. Tourte and has also played violins by Giuseppe Guarneri, Gaspare Lorenzini, Matteo Goffriler and Lorenzo Storioni.
